Who am I?
Below is a photo of a famous person. You will see the image first at low resolution, then at medium resolution and finally at high resolution. Resolution is a measure of how much detail you can see. The camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter takes very high- resolution images of Mars. That means we can see more on Mars than ever before! Try to guess who the person is below. Don’t flip to the next page before you make your guess!
5 pixel/cm Now can you guess who I am?
What do you see in this photo that you could not see in the last one?
32 pixel/cm
Who am I? (Hint: I was the 16th president of the United States)
What do you see in this photo that you could not see in the last one?
New York from Above
Now you will get to see photos of New York City taken from the air. These are called aerial photographs, and they are a lot like the photos that will be taken of Mars. Each photo you see will be at a higher resolution. Because you can see more detail, you see a smaller area.
It is a lot like if you were to take a picture of a big group of people or take a close-up photo of a single eye of one of the people (let’s call her Sara) in the group. In the picture of the big group, you would not know that Sara has blue eyes- they would just look like dots. In the close-up photo of Sara’s eye, you would know that her eyes are blue, but you wouldn’t know that they eye belonged to Sara or that she was part of a bigger group of people. They eye is the high-resolution photo and the large group of people is the low-resolution photo. Let’s start with the low-resolution photo of NYC:
Image courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center (http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov)
This is an image of the whole island of Manhattan in New York City taken by the astronauts in the Space Shuttle. What do you see in this photo?
In previous missions to Mars, we had low-resolution photos that allowed us to see all of the big features on Mars like volcanoes and canyons. Now, with HiRISE, we will be able to see more detail- individual rocks, and small hills called dunes. We won’t be able to take a photo of all of a big volcano at high-resolution though. We can maybe take a photo of one part of a lava flow.
Did you see the rectangle in the photo of the island above? That is Central Park, and to the left is a photo of the park taken from space. This photo is higher in resolution than the previous photo – we can see more detail, but of a smaller area. What can you see in this photo that you couldn’t see in the last one? What is the big dark area in the center? Do you see roads? Buildings? Trees? What are the little tan spots in the green circle?
Photo Credit: Google Earth
This photo is even higher resolution. It is a close-up of some of the buildings to the south of Central Park. Can you see St. Patrick’s Cathedral? Circle it in the photo above. What else can you see in this photo? Cars? Trees? People?
What are some things that you might be able to see in a city if another photo was taken at even higher resolution?
Where should HiR SE take a photo of Mars? I
Now that you know more about Mars, where do you think the HiRISE camera should take a photo of Mars? As a class, you will have the opportunity to suggest a potential location for the camera to take a picture. Because the photos are high resolution, we can only take pictures of a very small fraction of Mars. In order to decide where to take this photo, we have to come up with a good scientific question to answer- this is the reason for taking the photo in the first place.
What question do you want to answer? Here are some questions scientists are thinking about:
• How has atmosphere and temperature changed on the surface of Mars? Was it warmer in the past?
• How did water features, like gullies (small rivers) and channels (big rivers) form? They are all dry now, but how long did they have water and where did the water come from? Did it come up from the ground (there is water in the ground below us- have you ever dug a deep hole at the beach until you reached water or looked into a well?) or did it rain on Mars in the past?
• Are the icecaps at the poles growing or shrinking?
• Has there ever been life on Mars, either in the past or today? Where would we look for possible evidence of life?
• Where should we put the next Martian lander?
Once your class has come up with a question to answer, write it down here:
Next you need to think about where to look. If your question is about water on Mars, you might want to look at gullies on a crater rim or large outflow channels. If your question is about volcanoes, you might want to look at one of the Tharsis volcanoes or Olympus Mons.
If your question is about climate or the icecaps, you will want to look at the poles. Your teacher can help suggest some places to look. When the class decides, write the name of the place you are going to target here:
