NASA shared a beautiful photo of Mars to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Odyssey orbit, the longest-running Mars spacecraft in history.
The false color image released by the US space agency last week shows a sea of blue and yellow sand dunes created by gusts of wind around the northern polar cap of the red planet. The dunes cover an area as large as Texas.
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The photo is composed of several images taken from December 2002 to November 2004 by the infrared camera of the Mars Odyssey orbit, the Thermal Emission Imaging System, and has an area of about 30 km.
The photo is a false color image, which means that the colors are representative of the temperature. The blue color represents cooler temperatures, while the shades of yellow and orange indicate warmer areas.
Launched on 7 April 2001 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, Odyssey began orbiting Mars on 24 October 2001.
The spacecraft mapped the chemical elements and minerals that make up the surface of the red planet and led scientists to discover water ice in the polar regions buried below the surface. The orbit also recorded the radiation environment in a low Mars orbit to “determine the radiation-related risk for future human explorers who may one day go to Mars,” NASA say.
The orbit holds the record for the longest continuously active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth.
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