Planetary Science
Planets: Ascertaining the content, origin and evolution of the solar system and the potential for life elsewhere.
These presentations communicate various topics in Plantary science on the Hyperwall.
 | Martian Treasure Map: This image shows the landing site of NASA's Curiosity rover and destinations scientists want to investigate. Curiosity landed inside Gale Crater on Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT) at the green dot, within the Yellowknife quadrangle. Downloads: |
 | Dissecting the Scene of Sky Crane Crash:After a rocket-powered descent stage, also known as the sky crane, delivered NASA's Curiosity rover to Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT), 2012, it flew away and fell to the surface.This image shows the descent stage crash site, now in color, and several distant spots (blue in enhanced color) downrange that are probably the result of distant secondary impacts that disturbed the surface dust. Downloads: |
 | Curiosity's Travels Through Sol 56: This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 56th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Oct. 2, 2012). The route starts where the rover touched down, a site subsequently named Bradbury Landing. Downloads: |
 | Where Water Flowed Downslope on Mars: This image shows the topography, with shading added, around the area where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The black oval indicates the targeted landing area for the rover known as the "landing ellipse," and the cross shows where the rover actually landed. Downloads: |
 | Curiosity Wheel Scuff Mark at 'Rocknest': NASA's Mars rover Curiosity's right Navigation camera took this image of the scuff mark on the mission's 57th Martian day, or sol (Oct. 3, 2012), the same sol that a wheel created the mark. For scale, the width of the wheel track is about 16 inches (40 centimeters). Downloads: |
 | Earthrise 2.0: The visualization below uses data collected by NASA's Terra satellite and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to re-create Apollo 8's historic moment in space exploration on December 24, 1968, while circling the moon. Downloads: |
 | IBEX Orbit Visualization: In this visualization, we see the orbit of the spacecraft orbit (green) in relation to the Earth, the orbit of the Moon (gray), and Sun. Downloads: |
 | LRO Ground Track - One Sidereal Month: This animation depicts LRO's ground track over a period of 27.3 days (348 orbits) or one sidereal month, the amount of time it takes the Moon to turn once on its axis, relative to the stars. Downloads: |
 | LRO L-14 Press Conference Supporting Video: This video starts with LRO launch animation, shows the spacecraft's path to orbit, and ends with the spacecraft animated over the lunar surface. Downloads: |
 | How LRO Will Find Safe Landing Sites on the Moon: After a year in orbit aboard LRO, LOLA will have created an elevation map of the polar regions of Earth's moon; that is accurate to within a half-meter vertically and 50 meters horizontally. The map will be used by astronauts, to identify safe landing zones free of large boulders and craters. Downloads: |
 | LRO Supports LCROSS: This animation shows LRO and LCROSS from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after the impact on Earth's moon. The purpose of the crash was to create a plume of debris that could be examined for the presence of water and other chemicals in the lunar regolith. Downloads: |
 | Carbon-Dioxide Snowfall on Mars: This map shows the distribution of small-grain carbon-dioxide ice deposits formed by snowfall over the south polar cap of Mars. Deposits of small particles of carbon-dioxide ice are formed by snowfall from carbon-dioxide clouds. Downloads: |
 | MOLA: Seasonal Snow Variations on Mars: Polar Images: This image is colored with a mosaic from the MOC camera. The image on the bottom is colored according to the relative height of the surface features. Downloads: |
 | Mars Roll: This animation rolls Mars to show major features of the Martian topography. Major features depicted include: Olympus Mons, Valles Marineris, Hellas Basin, and the Martian North and South Poles. Downloads: |
 | MAVEN Orbit Animations and Beauty Passes: This collection of animations shows the MAVEN spacecraft in orbit around Mars, as well as MAVEN's overall orbit trajectory. After arriving at Mars in the fall of 2014, MAVEN will use its propulsion system to enter an elliptical orbit ranging 90 to 3,870 miles above the planet. Downloads: |
 | Moon Phase and Libration, 2012: This animation shows the geocentric phase, libration, position angle of the axis, and apparent diameter of the Moon throughout the year 2012, at hourly intervals. One month is compressed into 12 seconds, resulting in a wobble called libration. Downloads: |
 | Tour of the Moon: Using elevation and image data returned by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), aquired Aug 2009 to Sep 2011, this animation takes the viewer on a virtual tour of the Moon.This animation takes the viewer on a virtual tour of the Moon. The tour visits a number of interesting sites chosen to illustrate a wide variety of lunar terrain features. Downloads: |
 | Venus Transit – 2012: This visualization shows a conceptual illustration of the last Venus transit which occurred on June 5-6, 2012. A transit is when a planet passes directly between the Sun and the Earth and we see the planet as a small dot moving slowly across the face of the Sun. Downloads: |
 | Trickles of Water Flowing on Mars: The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO) High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment with a three-dimensional model to show flows that appear on the steep slopes of Newton Crater each spring and summer. Downloads: |
 | Mars-The Twin Peaks: The Twin Peaks are modest-size hills to the southwest of the Mars Pathfinder landing site. They were discovered on the first panoramas taken by the IMP camera on the 4th of July, 1997. Downloads: |
 | Is This Saturn’s “Big One”?: On Earth we fear getting hit by the “big” one—i.e., superstorm. On Saturn, “big” takes on a whole new meaning. Downloads: |
 | Lunar Copernicus Crater: This high resolution image, subframe 2162_H3, was taken by Lunar Orbiter 2 on 24 November 1966.Using better-tuned equipment and experience gained along the way, LOIRP rereleased this enhanced version of the original image. Downloads: |