Mars webcam now live

Mars Express - Image 1The viewcam’s gone on to reach the stars, folks. And the best part is it’s taking you along for the ride. ESA‘s Mars Express Visual Monitoring Camera is now up for public viewing and now you can quite literally see the red planet within your reach.

View of mars from the Mars webcam -- now open to public - Image 1 

The webcam‘s gone way beyond just global, it’s gone off to outer space! That’s right, folks. There’s now a roving webcam in space, and it’s on board Europe‘s Mars Express orbiter that’s been circling the red planet since 2003.

The Mars Express Visual Monitoring Camera just went live today, and ESA has been going trigger-happy with it since, clicking away with the camera to show some tourists a view of Mars. Actually, it’s been used to confirm the Beagle lander’s separation from the main spacecraft, although now, what makes it big news is that even ordinary non-space tourists folks like us can now check it out too.

Apart from being just a viewing machine, the camera can also be used to monitor weather and other changes in the planet. It doesn’t hurt that the view’s spectacular too, of course. To make the experience even more universal, the Mars Express team has sent out their invitation:

Open invitation for image feedback:: You can assist the Mars Express team with additional processing of the raw image data files as well as interpretation: What do you see? What part of the Mars surface is being shown? Can you identify any geographical features? What regions of the atmosphere or atmospheric components do you see?

To experience Mars firsthand, do click on the source link below. It should lead you to ESA’s official Mars webcam page.


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