Finals are about to eat my brain. I had no idea school was just so exhausting.
But this cheers my day – and hopefully will cheer yours too!
High resolution images of the surface of Mars, some in color, some in grayscale. The files are enormous, and worth it. You end up with a single pixel being about a meter on the ground – which is AMAZING, considering that we’re talking about Mars, here. Some of topography is just stunning.
Being able to look at geological structures on the surface of Earth is cool enough. But we can really start comparing to what we’re seeing on Mars. It’ll give us some ideas of how certain features on the Martian surface formed, which will answer a lot of questions. (Though there’s a big one we’ll probably need to get in closer to answer – was the agent of erosion water or wind?)
Seeing all of this information streaming in from Mars gives me a lot of hope. My dream is that some day we’ll be able to send up some seismic instrument packages, though that will take a lot of doing. But think about it – being able to take a look at the subterranian geologic structure, and what that could tell us about the history of the planet. (And that would just be scratching the surface!) Some day, I hope… some day.