We’re in the midst of another HiRISE team meeting here in Tucson. I can’t believe it’s been almost two years since the team meeting I blogged about here. There are a few new faces, but mostly familiar friends that we’ve worked with for years by now. Our two newest Targeting Specialists are meeting the science team for the first time. (They’re actually not that “new” any more – they started last June, but this is their first team meeting.) Some of the other new folks are students and post-docs who are working on interesting research projects using HiRISE data. There are also a few people from JPL here at the meeting, who we talk to on the phone and email often, but we’ve never actually met face-to-face before.

Today during the meeting we are getting updates on all the Science Themes. Our images are divided into groups according to the geologic process that we hypothesize occurred. For each of these themes, a Science Theme Lead is assigned. These “STLs” are Co-Investigators or postdocs who are experts in that area. For example, the Volcanic Processes theme contains images intended to explore phenomena related to volcanism, such as inflated lavas, water-lava interactions, volcanic pits and cones, and mysterious types of collapse features such as the one shown in the anaglyph to the left. As you can read in the caption for that image, we’re still not sure how this feature formed. There are several different possibilities. The image was originally placed in the Impact Processes theme because that was one hypothesis. However, after seeing the high resolution image and stereo data from HiRISE, formation by a meteor impact doesn’t seem as plausible. Collapse after loss of material beneath the surface, such as magma or water, is a better fit to our observations.

Thanks to our webmaster, and Google, HiRISE pages can now be translated from English to French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German or Arabic.

Here is a tip: once you have translated a page, all pages on the HiRISE website that you click through will be translated, too! There will be a link at the top of your browser to return to the original page. You can also hover over a sentence to see it in the original language, English.

Look for the little flag buttons on the right hand side of an observation page, under the link to Facebook.

We hope our international viewers benefit from this added feature.

The first few cycles of the extended science phase (ESP) have been very similar to the previous primary science phase (PSP). The main difference has been that the Observation IDs start with ESP instead of PSP! (like ESP_011268_2485) We’re also adding some warm-up observations on the night side of the planet now, which is adding some extra work in the planning. Luckily (?), Mars is at its farthest distance from the Earth right now, so the data rate is very low. This means fewer images to plan, so we have some extra time to do special things like this.

The next cycle, however, will mark some changes in the way we do the planning process. This is cycle 58 (can you believe it’s been that many cycles since we started??). For most of that time, we’ve been doing things in much the same way. We’ve gotten so good at it that everyone decided they wanted to change everything & mess it all up. haha, just kidding. We’re actually trying to simplify things. Even though we’ve gotten pretty good at this, it’s still an incredibly complex process. We would like to continue doing it for a long time and still remain sane. Also, we expect that our funding will be cut in the future, and we want to make sure we can still do everything even if we have fewer people. Plus, things just wouldn’t feel right if we weren’t constantly changing something!

If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty details, here are some of the things we’re changing: (more…)

My first New Years Resolution of 2009 was a very simple one: to get with the program and start using the awesome HiRISE desktop wallpaper images that our excellent webmaster continues to crank out (THANKS!). And you can too, here’s how.

On the New Images page, there’s a link to the latest wallpaper in a variety of common sizes. They’re packaged in zip files; opening the link will allow you to extract them in a folder on your computer. Next, find the settings for your desktop (usually by right-clicking on it). Within the settings, you can have it load an image from the folder and change to a new one, randomly, and periodically (5 minutes seems about right for me). Some people have multiple monitors, possibly in different pixel resolutions, so you could set up a folder for each one.

If you’re browsing our site and come across an image you’re particularly amazed by, many times there will be wallpaper drawn from that image (look on the right sidebar). Our weekly (captioned) releases all have this feature.

Finally, all of the wallpaper to date is available online, including not only the packaged zip files, but directories containing all of the images (to date), for each resolution.

So make a resolution (and determine your screen’s resolution!), grab a bunch of images, and be blown away by the beauty of Mars (at high resolution)!

This was originally posted here, written for the IAG Planetary Geomorphology Working Group’s featured image of the month. The author, Kathryn Fishbaugh, is a HiRISE team member, and she allowed us to post a copy of it here as well. It’s great to see the results scientists are getting from HiRISE images – and you thought they were just pretty pictures!

At the north pole of Mars lies Planum Boreum, a dome of layered, icy materials similar in some ways to the large ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica and comparable in size to the former. The dome itself consists of the polar layered deposits, consisting of over 90% ice with a little bit of dust, and the basal unit, consisting of ice, dust, and sand.

The image shows a cliff in the Polar Cap deposits. The upper portion of the cliff consists, for the most part, of fractured portions of the polar layered deposits and has a reddish appearance due to dust both coating and entrained within the ice (red arrow). Below that is the basal unit, with more flat-lying layers of blueish material that is basaltic sand (blue arrow) (like the black sand beaches in Hawaii). You might also notice some lighter colored layers. Those are also fractured and composed of ice and dust, like the polar layers above them. And at the bottom of the image, sand eroding from the basal unit is collecting into dunes (white arrow). The entire cliff is about 700 m (2300 ft.) tall (comparable to the depth of the Grand Canyon).

Scientists study past climates and trends in global warming on Earth by examining the air bubbles trapped within ice cores (long, cylindrical samples of ice, extracted with a drill) taken from Greenland and Antarctica. These ice cores contain ice created from last year’s snowfall to many hundreds of thousands of years ago and have trapped bubbles with the same atmospheric composition as existed when the snow fell. From this composition, scientists can figure out what was the contemporary temperature and hence how the climate has changed over time. Similarly, the ice in the polar layers and basal unit on Mars must also have recorded how the martian climate has changed. (more…)

Many people ask us if we are still imaging the Phoenix lander, and the answer is yes, as long as there is enough light. Here is our latest view of the landing site, acquired December 21, 2008. Conditions are hazy and dark because as the season approaches northern winter on Mars, the sun does not rise as high in the sky. Looks cold!