Want the Latest Mars Rover Photos? There’s an App for That

Vacantly staring at online travel sites during the afternoon doldrums before your daily commute home? Well, let NASA slack-off for you instead - after all, your taxes have helped to fund the program for years. Then, with a assist from a grateful space agency, every time you feel that special buzz in your pocket, it's the Mars Rover calling from deep space, just checking in and returning the favor; downloading another gorgeously desolate postcard from the Red Planet straight to your smart phone. After a little vicarious space exploration (aka Baron Munchausen-by-proxy), you'll rediscover a zeal for work. The only thing missing - a cheerful, 'wish you were here.' Ah... the zest of interplanetary intimacy.

Nine on-board cameras

Trundling across Mars, pint-sized Opportunity has been sending images back to Earth since it landed in 2004, just three weeks after its partner, Spirit, dropped onto the dusty planet's surface. While the two rovers had been expected to stop working 90 days after briefly searching for signs of water, Spirit didn't go dark until last year, and Opportunity, way past its prime and warranty date, continues to trudge across Mars streaming terra-byte-sized images and data back to earth - Pixar's Wall-E, as cheerfully re-imagined by Werner Herzog. NASA computer scientist Mark Powell, who works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (website) in Los Angeles, has developed a free app that downloads images directly to iPhone and Android users.

The tersely named app (in astronaut-speak), "Mars Images" automatically updates the latest shots from the planet's surface and also allows you to browse older photos from the NASA archive. Just go the iPhone or Android app stores. Or use the links at the bottom of Powell's Mars website. You never know, but this might be Opportunity's last Martian winter, and it just found a new vista to wait out the inhospitably harsh Martian climate. From a rocky outcrop on the rim of the Endeavour crater (story and photo), the rover has angled its solar arrays at the sun, as its nine on-board cameras record thousands of striking images:

  • Navigation Cams (Navcam): captures low resolution panoramas

  • Panoramic Cams (Pancam): captures high resolution panoramas

  • Hazard avoidance cams (Hazcam): maps the surface to avoid obstacles

  • Micro-imager (MI): robotic arm cam captures close ups of the terrain.

So the next time the rover captures an image like the one above - which NASA scientists have described as the most "bullet proof" evidence yet of Mars' watery past - you'll immediately be notified.

Dust storms from an orbital perspective

Thanks to a another free app, iPhone users can enjoy orbital images of Mars. The images come via a camera onboard NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter. Soon, summer will come to the south of Mars, the days growing longer and warmer. That's exciting news for scientists - warming temperatures cause dust storms to flare up and furiously blow across the planet (press release). Since these dust storms dwarf anything on Earth, scientists at Arizona's Mars Space Flight Facility will use the orbiter's THEMIS imaging system to monitor the dust particles settling over the planet's uncanny valleys.

A self-described "complete space nut"

The app comes from Kate Gordon-Bloomfield, a software developer and self-described "complete space nut." A programmer for about 10 years, she says, "I became interested in developing software for Apple after getting my first iPhone." She wrote the app on weekends and evenings while chatting and texting with friends. Sorry Android users.

Gordon-Bloomfield said, "I have always had an interest in space exploration. I even went to space camp when I was in my teens." The camera providing the daily images of Mars is the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS. It makes images of Mars at infrared and visible wavelengths. It just completed a global portrait of Mars at a resolution of 100 meters (330 feet). The iPhone app is available through the iTunes Web site. Besides being available through the iPhone, the THEMIS images of the day are accessible on the Web here. The site also has links categorizing the Martian features by type. For a complete Mars-immersion experience, download NASA's Mars24 Sunclock -- Time on Mars software. This is pretty wonky, so it requires Java 1.5 or better to be installed on the computer. The associated MER Spirit/Opportunity Clock Applet requires only Java 1.1.8 and is compatible with many older Web browsers.

Newest rover's photos coming soon

Because NASA always assumed that both rovers should have stopped communicating by now, the latest rover mission just made an in-flight course correction to put it on the planet's surface by August (a mission specialist explains). Monitored by scientists at JPL in Los Angeles, the new rover, nicknamed Curiosity, fired its thrusters, tweaking its trajectory during the tense three-hour maneuver. So get those apps installed, new images will be speeding back to Earth in August. Watch a NASA simulation of the landing (video above).

Do these apps help bring NASA's efforts alive for you?

Photo: Mark Powell, Nasa Graphic: Rover and cameras, Mark Powell Photo: Martian surface, Space.com via NASA Photo: Marstian winter terrain, Nasa Photo: iPhone app- iTunes Photo: Rover tracks- NASA, wikicommons Photo: orbital shot of Martian dust storm, NASA/JPL/ASU Photo: Rover illustration- NASA