CU astronomer's efforts help set up close portrait of the Big Red planet

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

The best picture yet of Mars, the big red planet, may not have been possible if not for the effort of a Big Red astronomer.

"It was very close to not happening," said James Bell, Cornell assistant professor of astronomy and a member of a Mars imaging team. "These are the pictures that almost never were."

White water ice clouds and swirling orange dust storms punctuate the rusty Mars landscape in this view of the planet obtained June 26 by the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA, Space Telescope Science Institute, J. Bell, et al.

After weeks of fingernail-biting, NASA's Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope's scientists managed to obtain a close-encounter image of Mars on June 26 when the planet was about 43 million miles (68 million km) from Earth.

Astronomers call these planetary encounters "oppositions" and they occur about every two years with Mars -- the planet was about the same distance from Earth in 1988. Thanks to Mars' irregularly shaped orbit, the oppositions are not all alike: Mars' biennial close approach to Earth can range from 35 million to 63 million miles. In 2003, Mars and Earth will be within 35 million miles of each other -- the closest since 1924. The two planets will not be that close again until 2287.

Knowing this, a group of astronomers, including Bell, bid for Hubble Space Telescope time months in advance of the June 2001 opposition and obtained it. They had planned to obtain spectrographic images of the Martian surface. The other astronomers on the team included Philip James of the University of Toledo; Michael Wolff of the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.; Andrew Lubenow of the Space Telescope Science Institute; and Joshua Neubert, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology enrolled in the Cornell summer Research Experience for Undergraduates program.

Disaster struck on May 15 when the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph broke on the satellite, leaving the astronomers without a way to snap spectrographic images of the Mars close encounter.

When the spectrographic camera went dead, all imaging sessions scheduled on it were cancelled -- including this one. With but weeks to spare, the astronomers scrambled to find time on the Hubble's optical camera. "We wrote a very, very fast proposal to Keith Noll of the Hubble Heritage Program," said Bell, describing the importance and rarity of the images.

With only days before the opposition, Noll managed to find a half-hour from the telescope's incredibly full and busy schedule for this opportunity. "We were really squeezed in," said Bell. "The scientists and administrators at the Space Telescope Science Institute were supportive and we were very fortunate to obtain time on such short notice."

The Hubble telescope, able to see details as small as 10 miles (16 km) across, detected polar ice caps, frosty white water ice clouds and swirling orange dust storms above the rusty Martian landscape. In the image, one large storm system is churning high above the northern polar cap [at the top of the image], and a smaller dust storm cloud can be seen nearby, according to Bell and his colleagues.

Bell said about the next close Mars encounter: "We plan to write a proposal for the 2003 opposition as well."