Saturday, March 25, 2006

First postcard from Mars

The high-resolution camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has returned its first test image. The first test image is a 50km swathe of land in the planet's mid-latitude southern highlands. The resolution is about 7.6 metres, but this will get even better in months to come as the probe refines its orbit, with the result that we will be able to see unprecedented 1 metre resolution images.