 NASA / JPL / Univ. of Ariz. |
Click for slideshow: Dust dunes make rippling patterns on the floor of Samara Valles, one of the longest ancient valley systems on Mars. Click on the picture to see a slideshow of “HiWish” imagery from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. |
The scientists who control the high-resolution camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have been taking requests, and now they’ve started to deliver Red Planet pictures to follow up on hundreds of suggestions from the public.
“Some people get into model railroading or Civil War re-enactments. My thing is exploring Mars,” James Secosky, a retired teacher in Manchester, N.Y., said in a NASA advisory. Secosky’s suggestion was among about 1,000 sent in to the “HiWish” imaging program set up in January by the team behind the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE.
The scientists evaluated those suggestions, and this week they released the first eight HiWish selections. The new views take an up-close look at sights such as a boulder-strewn plain, layered ice deposits, the slopes of a volcano and dusty highlands that may hide signs of volcanic activity.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the people’s choice program was “a prime example of what we call participatory exploration.”
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