October 29, 2013

Video: A Stunning Mars Flyover

The video below, released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Mars Express, is a stunning flyover of the planet, showcasing grabens, dendritic valleys, lava flows and the highest known mountain in the Solar System.

bigthinkeditor

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express has been around the Red Planet quite a few times – some 12,000 times, in fact. In the process, the space probe’s High Resolution Stereo Camera, has captured enough images to create “an almost global digital topographic model of the surface,” according to the space agency.

Watch here:

Read more here.

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

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Most planets in the Universe are orphans without parent stars

Known as orphaned planets, rogue planets, or planets without parent stars, these “outliers” might be the most common type of planet overall.

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Have we found a galactic “twin” of the Milky Way?

Our galactic home in the cosmos — the Milky Way — is only one of trillions of galaxies within our Universe. Is one of them truly our “twin?”

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