NASA’s 20-year-old Odyssey spacecraft has captured an unprecedented side view of the massive volcano Arsia Mons on Mars, revealing a towering, long-extinct giant above a glowing band of greenish haze in the planet’s upper atmosphere. The 12-mile-high volcano is nearly twice the height of Mauna Loa in Hawaii and provides scientists with new insights into Mars’ ancient past.
To capture this view, the Odyssey spacecraft had to adjust its camera position by rotating 90 degrees towards the horizon. This allowed NASA to study how dust and ice clouds change over the seasons, similar to how astronauts see Earth’s horizon on the International Space Station.
The image shows Arsia Mons sitting at the southern end of a trio of towering volcanoes in the Tharsis Montes region, which is home to the largest volcanoes in the solar system. The volcano is covered in water ice clouds, creating a unique feature known as the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud, which streaks 1,100 miles over southern Mars.
The cloudy canopy on display is part of a wider seasonal system called the aphelion cloud belt, which drapes across the planet’s equator when Mars is farthest from the sun. This image is the first to show a volcano breaking through the clouds, offering scientists new clues about how Mars’ atmosphere evolves over time.
“The images are giving us some really significant seasonal differences,” said Michael D. Smith, a NASA planetary scientist. “It’s giving us new clues to how Mars’ atmosphere evolves over time.”
Source: https://mashable.com/article/nasa-mars-arsia-mons-volcano-image