Bangalore:
India's Mars orbiter has sent a picture of regional dust
storm activities over the northern hemisphere of the Red Planet, ISRO
said today.
"Regional dust storm activities over northern
hemisphere of Mars - captured by Mars Color Camera on-board Mars Orbiter
Mission (MOM)", Bangalore-headquartered Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) said on its official Facebook page with a picture.
It said the image was taken from an altitude of 74,500 km from the surface of Mars.
MOM
spacecraft had sent its first images of the planet on Thursday, a day
after creating history by becoming the only such endeavour so far to
have met with success on the maiden attempt.
MOM aims to study the Martian surface and mineral composition and scan its atmosphere for methane, an indicator of life.
The
spacecraft is equipped with five instruments, including a sensor to
track methane or marsh gas, a colour camera and a thermal-imaging
spectrometer to map the surface and mineral wealth of the planet.
The Rs.
450-crore MOM is the cheapest inter-planetary mission. India is the
first country to reach Mars in the very first attempt. European,
American and Russian probes have managed to orbit or land on the planet,
but after several attempts.
The orbiter will keep moving in an
elliptical path for at least six months with its instruments sending
their gleanings back home.
The spacecraft was launched on its
nine-month-long odyssey on a homegrown PSLV rocket from Sriharikota in
Andhra Pradesh on November 5, last year. It had escaped the Earth's
gravitational field on December 1 and was placed in the Martian orbit on
September 24.
No comments:
Post a Comment
DROP YOUR COMMENTS HERE.
WE LOVE COMMENTS!!!!