With the following prominent locations of Mars labelled: eastern Hellas basin, Arcadia Planitia, Utopia Planitia, Nili Fossae, and Syrtis Major, this animation sweeps across one (Syrtis Major) of the ten panoramas. All of the photos are in black and white, with the exception of the panorama up top, which combines three colour channels.
The purpose of the ten Martian horizon panoramas was to provide a unique perspective of the Martian atmosphere when Odyssey was in its two-hour orbit around the planet. The difficulties encountered in producing the perspective are the reason it is so unusual. The observations were planned over the course of three months by engineers from Lockheed Martin Space, which constructed Odyssey and co-leads day-to-day operations, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which oversees the Odyssey project. THEMIS can map ice, rock, sand, and dust on the planet's surface in addition to temperature variations because of its sensitivity to warmth. Additionally, it is capable of measuring the amount of dust and water ice in the atmosphere—but only in the small column directly under the spacecraft. The reason for this is that THEMIS is stationary on the orbiter and typically points downward.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
