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For the first time, the hydrogen corona of Mars is shown: photos came from the probe الأمل

The probe الأمل (“Hope”) of the first Arab interplanetary mission transmitted data to Earth, according to which scientists have collected the first and almost complete image of the exosphere of Mars – the so-called corona. The press service of the Hope Mars Mission writes about this.

 

On May 10, from an orbit of 20,000 × 43,000 km, the probe made four “images” using the EMUS ultraviolet spectrometer. On Earth, they were stitched into one image with Mars in the center.

The planet in the image is surrounded by a cloud of atomic hydrogen, which is scattered more than 20,000 km from the surface.

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It is formed in the lower layers of the rarefied atmosphere of Mars when molecular hydrogen is “bombarded” by photons from the Sun – and scatters higher, including into open space.

The probe was launched to the Red Planet on July 20, 2020; on February 9, 2021, it successfully entered the orbit of Mars. Read about his mission.

The total mass of Hope with fuel is 1350 kg, the dimensions of the prismatic shape of the device, mainly of a composite-aluminum structure, are 2.37 m wide and 2.9 m high, the power of solar panels for charging three batteries is 1800 W, position correction is 11 engines. There are three instruments on board: a multichannel 12 Mpx camera for 4K video, capable of shooting at 180 frames / sec EXI, an EMIRS interferometric thermal infrared spectrometer, and an EMUS ultraviolet (100-170 nm) spectrometer. Final orbit for scientific research: 20,000 × 43,000 km with an inclination of 25 ° and an orbit in 55 hours.

The Earth has a similar “shell”, and it is ten times larger than the Martian one:

ESA Magnetic Geocorona Diagram (Click to Enlarge)

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