Subj : Daily APOD Report
To   : All
From : Alan Ianson
Date : Sat May 17 2025 00:15:04

                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                 2025 May 17

                 Ares 3 Landing Site: The Martian Revisited
              Image Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

   Explanation: This close-up from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's
   HiRISE camera shows weathered craters and windblown deposits in
   southern Acidalia Planitia. A striking shade of blue in standard HiRISE
   image colors, to the human eye the area would probably look grey or a
   little reddish. But human eyes have not gazed across this terrain,
   unless you count the eyes of NASA astronauts in the sci-fi novel, "The
   Martian," by Andy Weir. The novel chronicles the adventures of Mark
   Watney, an astronaut stranded at the fictional Mars mission Ares 3
   landing site, corresponding to the coordinates of this cropped HiRISE
   frame. For scale, Watney's 6-meter-diameter habitat at the site would
   be about 1/10th the diameter of the large crater. Of course, the Ares 3
   landing coordinates are only about 800 kilometers north of the (real
   life) Carl Sagan Memorial Station, the 1997 Pathfinder landing site.

                     Tomorrow's picture: fly over pluto
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

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