Picture Suggestions Welcome

Do you have a place you’d like to see “up close and personal” on Mars? If so, the folks running the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter want to hear from you. This is a very cool project for what has often been called the “people’s camera” on the long-running Mars mission. The idea is to engage people more closely with Mars exploration — and what better way than to challenge the public come up with ideas for places to explore with this wonderful camera?

The HiRISE team created an online tool called HiWISH that lets you examine Mars maps to see where images have been taken, where imaging will take place in the future. You use that to find areas where you want to explore that haven’t been covered — then you write up image suggestion.  You will be asked to give the observation a title, put it into a science theme like volcanism, seasonal change, or impacts, and explain why it’s important scientifically to observe the region of interest.

I’m sure that the team will get many thousands of suggestions for images of specific Mars sites. Their job will be to prioritize the images and evaluate them for good science.  The more scientifically relevant your suggestion is, the better chance your “imaging program” will get sent to the spacecraft.  Eventually, thousands of targets from scientists and the public will be imaged when the orbital track and other conditions are right.

If you want to explore Mars via image suggestions in this very cool program, head on over to the mission suggestion page.

Let’s get out there and do some good Mars science, everybody!