Mars Gallery

Mars 96 surface station, artwork

Mars 96 surface station. Artwork showing one of the surface stations of the Russian Mars 96 mission landing on Mars after being released from orbit. This mission's launch on 16 November 1996 failed and the spacecraft broke up as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. It carried two surface stations and two penetrators. The surface stations were each contained in an aeroball, seen here below the parachute. The aeroball would cushion the impact and then deflate to allow the station to unfold. Instruments, including the US Mars Oxidant Experiment, would have measured meteorological, physical and chemical conditions

© DAVID DUCROS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

MAVEN spacecraft in orbit, artwork

MAVEN spacecraft. Artwork of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft in orbit around Mars. The spacecraft launched on 18th November 2013 and is planned to reach Mars orbit on 22nd September 2014. From its orbit it will study the evolution of the Martian atmosphere. It is thought Mars used to have a thick atmosphere that made it warm enough for there to be liquid water on the surface. Data collected by MAVEN will shed light on how and why that atmosphere has been lost

© NASA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Comet 65P-Gunn, infrared image

Comet 65P-Gunn, infrared image. This comet is a short-period one (6.79 years) that orbits the Sun inside the main asteroid belt between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered in 1970. This observation was made by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) on 24 April 2010 (just one month after its closest approach to the Sun) in the constellation Capricornus. The comet (red) is colder in infrared than the surrounding stars (blue). Here, the comet is 392 million kilometres from Earth. Just ahead of the comet is a debris trail (fuzzy, red) along its orbit, a stage in the formation of a meteor shower

© NASA/JPL-CALTECH/WISE TEAM/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY