Even better than science!

... well, not really, but ...

No matter how interesting the big expensive science NASA does is, or how important the work is to understanding our planet and solar system or figuring out important problems, nothing is as cool as seeing your own house on a satellite photograph, as it were:

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recorded a scene on Jan. 29, 2012, that includes the first color image from orbit showing the three-petal lander of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit mission. Spirit drove off that lander platform in January 2004 and spent most of its six-year working life in a range of hills about two miles to the east.

Another recent image from HiRISE, taken on Jan. 26, 2012, shows NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander and its surroundings on far-northern Mars after that spacecraft's second Martian arctic winter. Phoenix exceeded its planned mission life in 2008, ending its work as solar energy waned during approach of its first Mars winter.

Here's the Spirit Lander:

i-4b55a6abe8a0f144499b825dd338af3a-621709main_pia15038-CLOSEUP-thumb-500x650-72454.jpg
Click to see a much larger image for context.

And here's a picture of the Phoenix Mars Lander.

These photos were taken by HiRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

More details here.

Tags

More like this

Those of you who know me know that I'm unhappy living here in Arizona.
People love to speculate that Mars was once a great place for life to form, and claim that there is plenty of evidence that there used to be oceans and rivers there. But this isn't true.
"Years of science fiction have produced a mindset that it is human destiny to expand from Earth, to the Moon, to Mars, to the stars." -Barney Oliver
Ethan Siegel calls Mars "the obvious first step in our journey to the stars" and "part of our dreams for reaching out into the Universe." Last year thousands of people applied to join Mars One, a proposed colonization effort slash reality show that plans to put