Here's a stunning image of tallest volcano in solar system that is NOT on Earth

NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter captured a stunning image of Olympus Mons, which is the tallest volcano in the solar system, on March 11, 2024. The image was posted Friday (Jun 28) on the social media account of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory which manages NASA's many robotic missions aimed at exploring Earth, the solar system and the universe.

The Mars robot was launched 23 years ago and is about to mark a new milestone on June 30, that is 100,000 trips around the Red Planet. While doing its job, the Odyssey orbiter has been mapping minerals and ice across the Martian surface. It relays data to Earth from NASA's rovers and landers and helps scientists to identify landing sites for future missions.

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The image is part of a result of the Odyssey team's ongoing efforts to offer high-altitude views of the planet's horizon. Notably, the first of these views was released towards the end of 2023.

The picture aids in the study of various layers of dust and cloud matter in the Martian atmosphere in addition to offering a never-before-seen perspective of the volcano.

The image was taken in March and shows a base sprawling across 600 kilometres and the shield volcano rising to a height of 27 kilometres.

As quoted by jpl.nasa.gov, Odyssey's project scientist, Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission, said: "Normally we see Olympus Mons in narrow strips from above, but by turning the spacecraft toward the horizon we can see in a single image how large it looms over the landscape. Not only is the image spectacular, it also provides us with unique science data."

NASA said in its report that the recent horizon photography was designed as an experiment between NASA's 2008 Phoenix mission and 2012 Curiosity rover landings several years ago.

Odyssey was crucial in transmitting information as the spacecraft raced towards the surface, just like it was in previous Mars landings both before and after those missions touched down.

The US-based space agency further added in its report that Odyssey's antenna had to be pointed towards the freshly arriving spacecraft and their landing ellipses in order to transmit their critical engineering data to Earth.

Scientists became curious when they realised that Odyssey's antenna would be pointing THEMIS towards the planet's horizon for this mission. THEMIS is a heat-sensitive camera called the Thermal Emission Imaging System, built and operated by Arizona State University.

Odyssey's mission operations spacecraft engineer, Steve Sanders of Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, said: "We just decided to turn the camera on and see how it looked." Odyssey was built by Lockheed Martin, which also supports the mission leads at JPL in their daily work.

"Based on those experiments, we designed a sequence that keeps THEMIS' field-of-view centered on the horizon as we go around the planet," Sanders added.

(With inputs from agencies)