The United Arab Emirates released the first image of the Mars probe now orbiting the Red Planet on Sunday.
The photo, taken on Wednesday, shows sunlight just crossing the surface of Mars. It shows the North Pole of Mars, as well as the largest volcano, Olympus Mons.
The image is from the UAE space probe “Amal” or “Hope”.
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The probe orbited Mars on Tuesday in a triumph for the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission.
On June 1, 2020, file display from the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center shows the Hope / Amal march probe through the United Arab Emirates. (Alexander McNabb / MBRSC via AP file)
Amal’s arrival places the UAE in a class of only five space agencies in history that have carried out a working Mars mission. As the country’s first venture outside Earth’s orbit, the flight is a point of intense pride for the oil-rich nation seeking a future in space.
About 60 percent of all Mars missions have ended in failure, crash, combustion, or otherwise failing, a testament to the complexity of interplanetary travel and the difficulty of descending through Mars’ thin atmosphere.
For months, Amal’s journey is followed with great enthusiasm by the UAE state media. Landmarks in the UAE, including Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower on Earth, have turned red to mark the spacecraft’s anticipated arrival. Billboards with the Amal tower above the Dubai highways. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the country’s foundation and Amal is part of the festivities.
Dubai’s Burj Khalifa will be illuminated in the form of a space rocket on February 9, 2021, while the UAE’s ‘Al-Amal’ – Arabic for ‘Hope’ – probe successfully entered Mars orbit and made history as the first interplanetary mission of the Arab world. (Giuseppe CACACE / AFP)
If all goes to plan, Amal will settle in an exceptionally high elliptical orbit of 13,670 miles by 27,340 miles (22,000 kilometers by 44,000 kilometers) over the next two months, from where it will survey the mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere around the entire planet. at any time of the day and in all seasons.
It joins six spacecraft already operating around Mars: three American, two European, and one Indian.