These are 11×17 PDFs showing cutouts of new releases, so you can print your own posters. Currently these are available for weekly releases starting 3/25/09 – look for more with each week’s new images!

They’re all available on this page. There are also links to the flyers on the individual image pages such as this one: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_011425_1775 (Look for the “HiFLYER” link in the lower right hand side.)

Enjoy!

	Elevation = Colorized MOLA (Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter) – I find this the most useful map to orient myself on the planet when I zoom pretty far out. The map isn’t very high resolution, but large global-scale features are easily identifiable.
	Visible = MOC (Mars Orbital Camera) wide-angle map. In this example, the visible map is clouded over by bright haze. That’s actually typical for this region – because it has such a low elevation, clouds form there during most of the year.
	Infrared = THEMIS (THermal EMission Imaging System) daytime IR – these maps are high-resolution, so they’re good for close-in context. They’re harder to interpret, though, because most people aren’t used to looking at infrared (IR) images. IR observations measure the temperature of the surface, not albedo (brightness/darkness) like a regular visible-light image. You do see shapes in daytime IR, like you would see in a visible image; shapes are detected because shadows are darker (and thus cooler) than sunlit areas. In addition, though, you can also get an idea of the type of material in an IR image. For example, dusty areas will be brighter in daytime IR images because they heat up faster during the day. Rocky areas will be darker, because it takes them longer to warm up from the cold night. (This article has a good explanation of this, using White Rock as an example.)

Using these maps, I was able to figure out that the “enigmatic terrain” in the above picture (PSP_009548_1420) is in the western part of Hellas Basin, which is a large, deep depression in the southern hemisphere of Mars. I could also tell it’s part of a larger isolated patch of this type of stuff, which seems to run concentrically along the inside of the basin rim. In this case I could have figured some of that out from the caption and the coordinates, but this is more fun.

My protective bubble burst when I saw the number of hits we got over the past few months:

• April: 36,200!
• May: 99,200!
• June: 44,500!
• July: 36,410! (as of this morning)

(The huge number of hits in May was probably due to the combination of the MPL search and the Phoenix imaging.)

…although this could just be 10 people who really love us, hitting “refresh” 4,000 times a month.

I don’t know how this compares to other websites, but I’m humbled and a little intimidated to find we have so many readers! I guess we should write more entries (and better ones!) We’re hoping to recruit some more team members to post, too. Ideas or requests for blog entry topics are welcome! Leave us a comment below.

A lot of these FAQ have to do with the different data products we release, and how we plan and process the images. There are also definitions of some of the terms we use, which we know can be confusing! Hopefully you’ll find these helpful. If you have questions about HiRISE images, how we work, or anything else, check out our FAQ. If your question isn’t answered in there, please ask us your questions below in the comments. We’ll try our best to answer them, and the FAQ will grow!

One FAQ I’d like to address is, “Why don’t you take an image of X?” where “X” is the asker’s favorite spot on Mars or other celestial body. My answer:

If X is on Mars, we will try to image it eventually. Someday (hopefully soon) we will release HiWeb, a tool that will let anyone suggest HiRISE targets. Then you can enter your favorite spot into our database of suggestions. However, HiRISE only gets to image ~1% of the entire surface of Mars in our primary mission, so keep in mind that we have to be extremely picky about what we image. Each suggested target is vetted and prioritized by the science team, then it goes through a lengthy and complex planning process, each step of which has the potential for kicking the target out that cycle. Things that can prevent a given target from being acquired include: limits to how far we can roll off nadir, conflicts with other instruments, conflicts with higher-priority HiRISE images, spacecraft power constraints, danger of the camera overheating, and limitations on the amount of data we can store on board and downlink via the DSN.

If you’re looking for answers to questions about other missions, or the red planet in general, here are some links that might help:

• MRO mission fact sheet (Clicking this link will download a PDF document)
• Phoenix mission FAQs
• Mars Fact Sheet
• Atlas of Mars
• More about the planet Mars

The movie might be a little hard to find; if you click on the “Updated: 19 March 2008″ link in the upper right of our main page, it will take you to this page, which shows this week’s releases. There, in the lower right corner, there are links to the scroll clip. It’s available in Quicktime, an “AppleTV” format (which plays for me in iTunes), and a smaller one for your iPhone. There’s even a groovy soundtrack! Thanks to our masterful webmaster who put this together. Let us know how you like it!

One paper talks about a few aspects of the history of water on Mars: HiRISE images of “rock glaciers” and bright deposits in gullies that might be extremely recent. HiRISE observations of an area called Athabasca Valles were used to show that it is actually covered with a thin veneer of lava. A third paper discusses thin layers in the North Polar cap. HiRISE is able to discern very fine layering (seen in an excerpt of image PSP_001636_2760 at left), as well as the color and thickness of each layer. Since these layers were laid down over hundreds of thousands of years of Martian history, they provide a record of climate change on the planet.

You can find a lot of things on the HiRISE website that are impossible to include in a print journal – like full-resolution color versions of the images from the papers, and (my favorite) cool 3-D flyover movies of the stereo observations. Our webmaster designed this lovely page for accessing these special products. Have fun flying over Mars!

If you aren’t super-excited about Phoenix yet, just try and not get excited by this awesome trailer they put together! (Alternate formats are available here, and on youtube, of course.) I was completely enthralled. It’s got everything — action, suspense, an emotional back-story, a totally Hollywood time-lapse mega-zoom to a night launch scene, and a rockin’ soundtrack!

The whole Phoenix website is fabulous, too, if you haven’t seen it yet.

Launches are risky times, and we’re all nervous and excited for Phoenix. All our best wishes go with it as it leaves this planet!

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/

If not, why are you reading this? Go look at it! It’s beautiful!

Besides the cool new look that shows off our beautiful images so nicely, the new website redesign also has some fun AND super-useful new features: a searchable catalog of released images, illustrated explanations of all of our science themes, HiRISE “To Go” for mobile devices, & more.

The solution for many NASA missions has been the development of the centralized Planetary Data System (PDS). The PDS is several things: a collection of websites, a search capability, an archive, a database, a learning tool, etc. The PDS Imaging Node is located at http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/ and acts as “the curator of NASA’s primary digital image collections from past, present and future planetary missions.” These missions include Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, and many more. Now the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been added to the list, with the HiRISE team releasing our first several months of image data.

• MRO PDS page: http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/Missions/MRO_mission.html
• MRO Product Search page: http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/search/index.jsp
• HiRISE Volume: http://hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/

What we have released is an archive of the HiRISE Experiment Data Records (EDRs) and Reduced Data Records (RDRs). EDRs are in the *.IMG file format and represent individual CCD channels (remember, there are 14 CCDs in the HiRISE camera and two channels per CCD, for a total of 28 channels). These EDRs are cleaned up, calibrated, stitched together, and mapped to Mars’ geometry, resulting in the RDR products. RDRs are in the *.JP2 and *.LBL formats. JPEG2000 is the technology that enables us to offer our gigantic images to the scientific community and the public in a timely and efficient manner. An observation’s image data are in the *.JP2 file and its meta data are in the detached *.LBL files. To view these products, JPEG2000 compatible software is required (see our site for a list of offerings).

While we have been trying to release up to five captioned images a week for the past few months, the PDS release represents several hundred images, most of them without captions. You can find them using the PDS search capabilities, and you can also find them on the new HiRISE site, unveiled today to coincide with this first PDS release. The redesigned site focuses on the images while providing, hopefully, a more user-friendly interface:

• HiRISE Site: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/
• “About Our Redesign”: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/profil.php
• Images released to the PDS: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/pds_release.php

As word gets out about the new site and the PDS release, you may experience some site slowness. Please be patient, and thank you for your interest!

1. The image is taken by the HiRISE camera, and is stored in up to 28 channels, two for each of the 14 CCD arrays of the camera. Each channel covers about half of the image. Of the 14 CCDs, 10 are red CCDs, two are blue-green, and two are near-infrared. The color CCDs are aligned with the center red CCDs.
2. The image is placed inside a buffer on MRO, awaiting transmission to Earth, along with science data from the other instruments on MRO.
3. The image is received in packets by the Deep Space Network (DSN).
4. After 4 hours of collecting data at the DSN, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) puts the packets together for what is known as a “quick look”. The entire image generally has not yet been received by this point in time, but it is enough of the image that it can be processed to take a quick look at it. Subsequently, JPL puts together all of the data it has received every 4 hours and makes it available to the computers at HiROC.
5. After the files have been put together by JPL, then one of the computers at HiROC looks and sees that there is data on the JPL server and copies the data to our system at HiROC. This is the start of what is known as the pipeline, the system of programs at HiROC which process the images. This usually happens either via a direct connection to JPL (slower), or through the Internet 2(Faster, but sometimes can be bogged down).
6. The images are put together into a viewable format, using the minimum processing possible, and create what’s known as an EDR, or Experimental Data Record. This is done without calibration, stitching together the channels, or any other processing, aside from putting the image together. For an image which uses all 14 CCDs, there will be 28 EDRs. These generally speaking are of mainly scientific interest, but they will be released to the general public via the Planetary Database System (PDS). They will be in the standard PDS format.
7. After the EDRs have been created, they are converted to another format for ISIS. ISIS, the Integrated Software for Imagers and Spectrometers is a suite of tools used for processing images for most interplanetary missions, that was developed by the United States Geological Society (USGS). Most of the tools that we use at HiROC for processing our images are written for ISIS files.
8. After the ISIS files have been created, they are calibrated via a program called HiCal. This reduces the inherent noise of the camera to be more consistent with what is being photographed. All digital cameras create some level of noise, and while HiRISE is an extremely good instrument, it still generates a low level of noise.
9. After the individual channels are calibrated, then they proceed to a program called HiStitch, which puts the two channels of the same CCD together. As they are a part of the same CCD, this requires little processing.
10. Next, after each CCD been stitched together, the full CCD images run through a program called HiccdStitch. This program puts the different ccds together, making a mosaic for each color band. This requires some processing, as the ccds slightly overlap, and it can sometimes be difficult to match the different arrays exactly.
11. If the image has not been completely received, then at this point, the pipeline stops, until JPL has received the entire image, or if there are a few confirmed gaps in the image which we haven’t been able to recover. Transmission over the vast distance between Earth and Mars is not easy, and even the best systems have some small error.
12. After the image has been completely stitched together, then the image is geometrically projected. To understand this, realize that the images that HiRISE takes are flat, while Mars is actually round. Geometrical Projection alters the image so that the image points in compass directions, while correcting any distortions that are created by the ellipsoidal shape of Mars. With the geometrical projection images and the right software tools, such as qview for ISIS, the exact distance can be found between two point on the image. In order for this to happen, we must wait for information to be gathered on the exact position of the spacecraft. This is done by the nagivational team, based off of the downlink frequency. This takes two weeks after the picture has been taken, so Geometric Projection might take a while. This is the longest wait point of the operation. An image can be released from predicted information, however, most images will wait for the correct SPICE kernels to be calculated, in order to get the best information. If an image is geometrically projected from predicted information, it will be calculated with the correct info after it has been received.
13. The images are then validated by a team of students known as the HiRISE Validators. They check to make sure that everything in the pipeline worked perfectly, see if there are any gaps in the images, and other similar tasks. If they notice a problem, they contact the HiRISE Operators, who will take steps to resolve the problems, which may include passing part or all of the image through the pipeline again, or tweaking the software to make it work perfectly.
14. The image is converted to a format that the general public can use. Currently that format is JPG, or TIFF, but eventually we will use JPEG 2000.
15. After all of this, the science team members of HiRISE will look at an image to see if there is anything noteworthy. If there is, it is given a caption, and perhaps a press release. If not, it will be posted on the HiRISE website. They are also posted on the MRO website, and occasionally on others.

This process may take as long as a week or two to complete, depending on the load of MRO, scheduling concerns, load at HiROC, etc. The first image took about 9 hours to be completely processed after it was taken by HiRISE. The Victoria Crater picture, taken during a much busier time on MRO, took about 36 hours to make its way to our hands. This was in part due to the larger size of the image, as well as the cache of images already awaiting transmission on MRO to earth. The captions for the images taken during Transition imaging took anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks to write, and this will likely continue to hold. We at HiROC want to release the images we take as fast as possible to the public, and we are doing everything we can to realize this goal. Several shortcuts were taken during the Transistion imaging phase that allowed for images to be released quicker. For Primary Science Phase, this will take a bit longer because these shortcuts will not be taken, but we expect that we will release most images within two weeks after them being taken, shortly after we have finished receiving, processing, and captioning the image.

There are some variations to this process, for example, the Victoria Crater picture was released in a press conference jointly with the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) team. Also, color images require extensive calibration and take a lot more time. However, this is the general idea. Currently the entire system, except for writing the captions and adding the images to our website, is essentially completely automatic for receiving and processing HiRISE images, due to years of preparation by the HiTECH and HiOPS teams.