The latest image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows parts of ESA’s ExoMars Schiaparelli lander and its crash site in color.
On November 1, HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter observed the impact site of Schiaparelli lander, gaining the first color view of the site since the lander’s Oct. 19 arrival. These cutouts from the observation cover three locations where parts of Schiaparelli reached the ground: the lander module itself in the upper portion, the parachute and back shell at lower left, and the heat shield at lower right. The heat shield location was outside of the area covered in color. The scale bar of 32.8 feet (10 m) applies to all three cutouts. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.
The main impact site is now captured in the central portion of the swath that is imaged by HiRISE camera through three filters, enabling a color image to be constructed.
In addition, the newest image was taken looking slightly to the west, while the Oct. 25 HiRISE image was looking to the east, providing a contrasting viewing geometry.
Indeed, the image sheds new light on some of the details that could only be speculated from the first look last week.
For example, a number of the bright white spots around the dark region interpreted as the impact site are confirmed as real objects — they are not likely to be imaging ‘noise’ — and therefore are most likely fragments of Schiaparelli.
Interestingly, a bright feature can just be made out in the place where the dark crater was identified in the Oct. 25 image. This may be associated with the module, but the images so far are not conclusive.
A bright fuzzy patch revealed in the color image alongside the dark streaks to the west of the crater could be surface material disturbed in the impact or from a subsequent explosion or explosive decompression of the lander’s fuel tanks, for example.
About 0.6 miles (0.9 km) to the south, both the parachute and rear heatshield have also now been imaged in color.
The parachute is many times brighter than the Martian surface in this region. It has a different shape than in the first HiRISE image, apparently shifting in the wind.
A stereo reconstruction of this image in the future will also help to confirm the orientation of the rear heatshield.
The pattern of bright and dark patches suggest it is sitting such that we see the outside of the heatshield and the signature of the way in which the external layer of insulation has burned away in some parts and not others – as expected.
Finally, the front heatshield has been imaged again in black and white — its location falls outside of the color region imaged by HiRISE — and shows no changes.
Because of the different viewing geometry between the two images, this confirms that the bright spots are not specular reflections, and must therefore be related to the intrinsic brightness of the object.
That is, it is most likely the bright multilayer thermal insulation that covers the inside of the front heatshield, as suggested last week.
Further imaging is planned in about two weeks, and it will be interesting to see if any further changes are noticed.
