This is part 2 of our list of Mars residents that we started last week. Since last week’s post some new imagery of the Schiaparelli landing site has been released. However, it is not yet available on the HiRISE download site. There is a marker showing that an image was captured of the location with the HiRISE camera, but as of this writing, there is a message saying that the image is currently unavailable.
Mars Pathfinder lander and Sojourner rover
Mars Pathfinder’s rover Sojourner was the first rover on Mars. However, it was relatively small at 65 cm long, 48 cm wide, 30 cm tall and weighing 10.5 kg. It can be seen near the lander in Google Mars imagery:
Yes, that’s as far as it got, in 83 sols (Martian days).
Parachute and backshell.
Viking 1 lander
The Viking 1 lander and its backshell are visible in Google Mars imagery, but we were unable to find its parachute.
Viking 1 lander
Viking 1 backshell
Viking 2 lander
The Viking 2 lander is just visible in Google Mars imagery, but we were able to find a better one which also shows the locations of the backshell and heat shield.
Top left: Backshell. Top right: Heat shield. Bottom: Viking 2 lander.
Mars 3 lander (USSR)
Google Mars does not have high resolution imagery of the Mars 3 lander, but we were able to find a HiRISE image of the parachute.
Mars 3 parachute.
Mars 6 lander (USSR)
There are several images of what is believed to be the Mars 6 lander’s crash site, but as far as we can tell, none of the lander’s components have been identified.
No imagery
It appears no high resolution imagery has been captured for the locations of:
* Mars Polar Lander
* Mars 2 lander (USSR)
To see all the locations above, including some imagery overlays and last week’s locations, download this KML file
.
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
I have updated my Schiaparelli KMZ file with the new high resolution imagery. It can be found at this UMSF blog entry: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8227&view=findpost&p=233322