Using spacecrafts' orbital irregularities to "see" beyond the surface of Mars. A new map of Mars' gravity made with three NASA spacecraft is the most detailed to date, providing a revealing glimpse into the hidden interior of the Red Planet."Gravity maps allow us to see inside a planet, just as a doctor uses an X-ray to see inside a patient," said Antonio Genova of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts. "The new gravity map will be helpful for future Mars exploration, because better knowledge of the planet's gravity anomalies helps mission controllers insert spacecraft more precisely into orbit about Mars. Furthermore, the improved resolution of our gravity map will help us understand the still-mysterious formation of specific regions of the planet."Read more: http://go.nasa.gov/25fYI5yNASA's MAVEN Mission to Mars
Posted by NASA Goddard on Monday, March 21, 2016
In this video, new info gathered by three Nasa spacecraft give us a look deep inside the Red Planet and a map of its gravity field. This new discovery confirms suspected similarities between Mars and Earth, making landing a manned ship on the far away planet more plausible than ever before.
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