The UAE’s Hope probe has shared two new images of Mars taken late last month.
The probe’s Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer took the images of atomic hydrogen surrounding Mars on April 24 and 25 after transitioning to the science orbit.
“This is the first mission to any planet that has been able to make images from different points of view over the course of a day,” a statement said.
The Emirates Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS) took images of atomic hydrogen surrounding Mars on 24 & 25 April 2021 after transitioning to the Science Orbit. EMM is the first mission at any planet that is able to make images from different points of view over the course of a day. pic.twitter.com/65h2qyYkML
May 7, 2021
On 9 February, a new object successfully began to orbit Mars: an un-crewed spacecraft called the Hope Probe. The mission has already returned the first image of Mars, taken by Hope’s Emirates eXploration Imager from an altitude of 24 700 km.
Led by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), the Hope Probe is the first interplanetary mission for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the fifth country in history to reach the red planet. It will also be the first spacecraft to capture a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere and its layers during different times of the day and different seasons for one complete Martian year.
Emirates Mars Mission Hope Probe ready for science data gathering
DUBAI, March 9, 2021 The Emirates Mars Mission, the first interplanetary exploration undertaken by an Arab nation, has announced the completion of its commissioning and testing phase and its readiness for transition to its science orbit. The completion of testing is ahead of schedule and the transition to science manoeuvres will take place earlier than planned. “We have completed twenty-one orbits of Mars since we arrived at the Red planet on the evening of the 9th February,” said EMM Project Director Omran Sharaf. “In that time, we’ve been busy calibrating the Hope probe’s three instruments, commissioning and testing the spacecraft’s instrumentation subsystems and using every opportunity to gather data while we’ve been in our capture orbit.”
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The planet Mars has no global magnetic field, although scientists believe it did have one at some point in the past. Previous studies suggest that when Mars global magnetic field was present, it was approximately the same strength as Earth s current field. Surprisingly, instruments from past Mars missions, both orbiters and landers, have spotted patches on the planet s surface that are strongly magnetized a property that could not have been produced by a magnetic field similar to Earth s, assuming the rocks on both planets are similar.
Ahmed AlHantoobi, an intern working with Northern Arizona University planetary scientists, assistant professor Christopher Edwards and postdoctoral scholar Jennifer Buz in NAU s Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, led a study looking for answers to explain these magnetic anomalies. The team explored the relationships between the strength of the magnetic field on the surface and the composition of the crust in the Terra Sirenum-T