Mars Orbiter Mission completes 4 years: In pictures

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Mars Orbiter Mission completes 4 years: In pictures
mars disk

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The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO’s) first interplanetary mission, completed 4 years on Monday. This mission made India the first country to enter the red planet’s orbit on its first attempt as well as the first Asian country to have sent a spacecraft into Mars’ orbit.


To mark the occasion, ISRO shared some pictures from the Mars Colour Camera (MCC) on board the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft (MOS).

In order to fulfil its mission of collecting data to study the Martian atmosphere and observe the red planet's physical features, the MOS also carries a thermal infrared imaging spectrometer, methane sensor for Mars, Mars exospheric neutral composition analyser and a Lyman Alpha photometer.

Here are some of the images that have been captured so far:

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India from space

India from space

The first picture that the MCC took of India as it after it took off November 19, 2013.

Martian surface

Martian surface

The first picture that MOM took of the Martian surface.

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​Olympus Mons water ice clouds

​Olympus Mons water ice clouds

Olympus Mons is the tallest planetary mountain in the Earth’s solar system. The volcano measures 2.5x the height of mount everest at a height of 26 kms above plains in the Tharsis region, a vast volcanic plateau.

​Kasei Valles

​Kasei Valles

Lying to the east of the Tharsis region, Kasei Valles is speculated to be the biggest outflow channel on the red planet. Theories hypothesize that the channel probably formed during gigantic floods resulting from tectonic and volcanic activity in Tharsis.

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Arsia Mons

Arsia Mons

The the south east of Olympus Mons is Arsia Mons, on the Tharsis bulge next to the equator of Mars. It’s the last in a string of three volcanoes consisting of Pavonis Mons and Ascraeus Mons.

Eos Chaos

Eos Chaos

The Eos Chaos area is a part of the Valles Marineris, a set of canyons stretching across more than 4,000kms with a depth of upto 7kms. With those dimensions, it’s one of the largest canyons in the known solar system.

The Eos Chaos is only a 490kms stretch, but that’s still nearly long enough to cover the United States from the east to west coast.

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Mars Dust Storm

Mars Dust Storm

It’s been theorised that dust storms are responsible for 10% of the water loss on Mars. And while, science-fiction movies portray Martian dust storms as deadly, winds actually rarely go faster than 60kms/hour. That’s less than half the speed of the hurricane winds on Earth.