First-ever livestream from Mars will beam back images from the red planet today. Watch it here.
ESA/D. O'Donnell - CC BY-SA IGO
- The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to live stream images from Mars.
- This will be the first time ever images will be streamed in near real-time from Mars, per ESA.
- "This will be the closest you can get to a live view from the Red Planet," per ESA.
Prepare to see Mars like never before.
The European Space Agency (ESA) will be attempting its first-ever live stream of images from Mars today, providing space fans with close-up view of the red planet.
The agency will aim to beam back an image of the red planet every 50 seconds from its Mars Express satellite at 12 p.m. ET. The images will be sent nearly 190 million miles back to Earth.
You can watch the live stream here:
"This will be the closest you can get to a live view from the Red Planet," ESA said in a statement.
The images will be made visible online in near-real time, as it takes about 20 minutes for the images to be beamed back to Earth.
It achievement will be an engineering feat for ESA's Mars Express satellite, which was launched 20 years ago today and has been orbiting Mars for nearly as long.
ESA
Mars Express was never meant to be in operation this long. Its primary purpose was to record the landing of the Beagle 2 lander about 20 years ago.
But its camera continued beaming images back to Earth in batches. It has become a favorite of space enthusiasts, as the images are uploaded every couple of days to an ESA Flickr account, ESA said.
ESA/ATG medialab; Mars: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
But this is the first time the agency will be attempting to stream these images live, in celebration of the probe's 20th anniversary.
The satellite isn't just there for fun. The pictures have helped scientists make discoveries about Mars.
"We developed new, more sophisticated methods of operations and image processing, to get better results from the camera, turning it into Mars Express's 8th science instrument," explains ESA's Jorge Hernández Bernal, who is part of the team analyzing these images.
"From these images, we discovered a great deal, including the evolution of a rare elongated cloud formation hovering above one of Mars' most famous volcanoes – the 20 km-high Arsia Mons," he said.
ESA/GCP/UPV/EHU Bilbao, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Using this picture, scientists figure out that winds hitting this dead volcano were rapidly cooling, leading to water ice condensation and clouds forming. creating the cloud. However, why the cloud is stretched out is still a mystery, per ESA.