HiRISE | Watching the InSight Lander Region (ESP_062884

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

Watching the InSight Lander Region
ESP_062884_1845 Science Theme: Aeolian Processes

HiRISE periodically images the InSight lander region in case anything changes, such as the appearance of new dust devil tracks. InSight has detected many passing atmospheric vortices, but they do not necessarily disturb the surface sufficiently to create a new track visible from orbit.

The cutout (with the the lander in the upper left corner) was given a “hard” stretch, saturating the brightest and darkest regions, to better detect subtle dust devil tracks. There are several southeast-to-southwest trending streaks to the east of the lander that may be from dust devils, but they were also present in a prior HiRISE image acquired about one month earlier, so they did not form in the past month. The bright spot next to the lander is a specular reflection from the smooth hemispherical cover over the seismometer.

Written by: Alfred McEwen (30 January 2020)

Acquisition date
26 December 2019

Local Mars time
15:30

Latitude (centered)
4.497°

Longitude (East)
135.624°

Spacecraft altitude
273.2 km (169.8 miles)

Original image scale range
28.1 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~84 cm across are resolved

Map projected scale
25 cm/pixel and North is up

Map projection
Equirectangular

Emission angle
13.9°

Phase angle
41.7°

Solar incidence angle
54°, with the Sun about 36° above the horizon

Solar longitude
126.2°, Northern Summer

For non-map projected images
North azimuth: 97°
Sub-solar azimuth: 28.6°

JPEG
Black and white
map projected  non-map

IRB color
map projected  non-map

Merged IRB
map projected

Merged RGB
map projected

RGB color
non-map projected

JP2
Black and white
map-projected   (513MB)

IRB color
map-projected   (295MB)

JP2 EXTRAS
Black and white
map-projected (224MB)
non-map           (267MB)

IRB color
map projected (75MB)
non-map           (248MB)

Merged IRB
map projected (148MB)

Merged RGB
map-projected (142MB)

RGB color
non map           (233MB)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
B&W label
Color label
Merged IRB label
Merged RGB label
EDR products
HiView

NB
IRB: infrared-red-blue
RGB: red-green-blue
About color products (PDF)

Black & white is 5 km across; enhanced color about 1 km
For scale, use JPEG/JP2 black & white map-projected images

USAGE POLICY
All of the images produced by HiRISE and accessible on this site are within the public domain: there are no restrictions on their usage by anyone in the public, including news or science organizations. We do ask for a credit line where possible:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

POSTSCRIPT
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.