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The 23-year-old orbiter is taking images that offer horizon-wide views of the Red Planet similar to what astronauts aboard the International Space Station see over Earth.<\/em><\/p>\n NASA\u2019s longest-lived Mars robot is about to mark a new milestone on June 30: 100,000 trips around the Red Planet since launching 23 years ago. During that time, the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter has been mapping minerals and ice across the Martian surface, identifying landing sites for future missions, and relaying data to Earth from NASA\u2019s rovers and landers.<\/p>\n Scientists recently used the orbiter\u2019s camera to take a stunning new image of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system. The image is part of a continuing effort by the Odyssey team to provide high-altitude views of the planet\u2019s horizon. (The first of these views was published in late 2023.) Similar to the perspective of Earth astronauts get aboard the International Space Station, the view enables scientists to learn more about clouds and airborne dust at Mars.<\/p>\n Taken on March 11, the most recent horizon image captures Olympus Mons in all its glory. With a base that sprawls across 373 miles (600 kilometers), the shield volcano rises to a height of 17 miles (27 kilometers).<\/p>\n \u201cNormally 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,\u201d said Odyssey\u2019s project scientist, Jeffrey Plaut of NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission. \u201cNot only is the image spectacular, it also provides us with unique science data.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to offering a freeze frame of clouds and dust, such images, when taken across many seasons, can give scientists a more detailed understanding of the Martian atmosphere.<\/p>\n A bluish-white band at the bottom of the atmosphere hints at how much dust was present at this location during early fall, a period when dust storms typically start kicking up. The purplish layer above that was likely due to a mixture of the planet\u2019s red dust with some bluish water-ice clouds. Finally, toward the top of the image, a blue-green layer can be seen where water-ice clouds reach up about 31 miles (50 kilometers) into the sky.<\/p>\n Named after Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s classic science-fiction novel \u201c2001: A Space Odyssey,\u201d the orbiter captured the scene with a heat-sensitive camera called the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, which Arizona State University in Tempe built and operates. But because the camera is meant to look down at the surface, getting a horizon shot takes extra planning.<\/p>\n By firing thrusters located around the spacecraft, Odyssey can point THEMIS at different parts of the surface or even slowly roll over to view Mars\u2019 tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos.<\/p>\n The recent horizon imaging was conceived as an experiment many years ago during the landings of NASA\u2019s Phoenix mission in 2008 and Curiosity rover in 2012. As with other Mars landings before and after those missions touched down, Odyssey played an important role relaying data as the spacecraft barreled toward the surface.<\/p>\n \n