In this July 16, 2008 released image provided by the European Space Agency, Echus Chasma, one of the largest water source regions on Mars, is imaged from ESA’s Mars Express.
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ESA / Getty Images
In this July 16, 2008 released image provided by the European Space Agency, Echus Chasma, one of the largest water source regions on Mars, is imaged from ESA’s Mars Express.
ESA / Getty Images
It is not easy to take a picture of Mars.
Once the light bounces off the planet, it can take anywhere from 3 to 22 minutes to travel to Earth – so there are no “live” pictures of Mars.
But on Friday at 12 noon EST, viewers will have the chance to see the latest possible images of Mars with the help of the European Space Agency.
With this camera, originally designed for engineering purposes, we will be getting “live” images this evening from 18:00 CEST on the first #MarsLIVE
What makes this unique, though, is that it’s a live one-hour broadcast from Mars – but don’t expect a detailed view of # red planet! pic.twitter.com/9BkL9elZRB
– ESA operations (esaoperations) June 2, 2023
The European Space Agency will provide the first “Live broadcast” of Mars on YouTube, by publishing images of the planet every 50 seconds as they are broadcast live from the space agency’s camera installed on the Mars Express orbiter. The live broadcast will take an hour.
Live broadcast celebrates the 20th anniversary of Mars Express a task, which was launched in 2003 in order to better understand the planet, as well as search for traces of water.
It is rare to see live footage from deep space
There are only a few examples of “live” footage in space, including the famous Apollo missions that show astronauts walking on the surface of the Moon, as well as the DART and LCROSS missions where NASA deliberately collided with asteroids and the Moon, respectively, ESA . he said in a press release.
“All of these missions have been very close to home and some have sent back maybe an image or two as close to real time,” the European Space Agency said. “When it comes to a long live broadcast from deep space, this is a first.”
Most observations and data collected by spacecraft are sent back to Earth after a few hours or even days – which is not generally a problem for scientists.
Indeed, although the speed of light can make live streaming difficult, in other cases, it has been a boon for scientific discovery.
Take Euclid’s task. The European Space Agency said the telescope will capture light that has been traveling for 10 billion years, allowing scientists to see 10 billion years into the past.
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