Mangalyaan :-By ISRO comlete misson

 Some of you may have heard of the amazingfeat produced by the ISRO, or India’s space agency, where they successfully inserted aprobe into Mars’ orbit on the first time of trying, for a relatively miniscule 66 milliondollars back in 2014. This made it the first space agency in theworld to have a successful Mars mission on the first time of trying, plus it is the firstAsian agency to get to Mars. This by itself is pretty impressive, but it’sbeen in orbit for over 5 years now, so what has it done and seen around Mars? And has it contributed anything beyond whatthe NASA and ESA missions have already achieved? I’m Alex McColgan, and you’re watchingAstrum, and together we will investigate the findings and imagery of the Mangalyaan missionto Mars. Mangalyaan launched from India in 2013, onboardan ISRO rocket designed to insert satellites into orbit around Earth. As the rocket didn’t have the thrust neededto get Mangalyaan to Mars, the probe had to use some of its own fuel to leave Earth orbit,which it achieved gradually over several orbits. Upon arriving at Mars, it was inserted intoa highly elliptical orbit. At its furthest point, Mangalyaan is almost80,000km from Mars, and its closest approach takes it only 420km above its surface.

 This orbit is much different from NASA’sMars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which remains close to the Martian surface in order to imagethe surface at a much higher resolution. This is due to the different science goalsof the missions. Mangalyaan does seem like more of a technologydemonstration mission, although scientific instruments onboard had a particular focusto study Mars’ upper atmosphere. However, what I really like about this missionis that they put a pretty normal camera onboard to image the Martian surface. This means the raw images are true colourimages, seeing Mars as you would see it if you were in orbit. Having a highly elliptical orbit also meanswe can get a view of the whole of Mars in one go, reminiscent of the old NASA Vikingmissions, and I must say that at this distance, Mars is a beautiful planet. 

The carbon dioxide and water ice caps arevisible at the planet’s poles. Various shades of rock sediment and dust patchesacross the surface provide an interesting contrast. Craters of various sizes span the planet. And of course, some of Mars’ most interestingfeatures are visible, like its long dormant shield volcanoes and huge valley structures. What’s also visible, even from this distance,are some of the Mars’ famous giant dust storms. In this image, the dust storm spans thousandsof kilometres across the northern hemisphere. These storms can last weeks to months, almostcompletely blocking sunlight from reaching the surface under the densest parts. Storms like these caused big issues for thesolar powered rovers Opportunity and Spirit. Some smaller storms can also be seen in someof the other global views of Mars. Orographic clouds are often seen over thevolcanoes of Mars. And yes, these are water ice clouds. Although the atmosphere of Mars is a lot thinnerthan on Earth, and most of its water has been lost, there is a still a small amount of watervapour in the atmosphere.

 And in this image, we see three smaller volcanoes,with orographic clouds forming over Elysium Mons, the centre volcano. Orographic clouds form when air is forcedhigher as it moves over high terrain. During a closer approach over Elysium Mons,clouds are still visible, but more apparent are these trenches around the volcanoes. These are called fossae, trenches formed bythe stretching of the plate they reside on, often caused on Mars by the sheer weight ofthe nearby plate volcanoes. The fossae widen as more material falls in. Think of it like a series of connected sinkholeson Earth, but instead of material being eroded under the surface causing the pit to openup like on Earth, on Mars the cause is due to a fault under the surface, sometimes upto 5 km deep. A close-up examination of one of a fossa revealssomething interesting, right in the middle of this image, you can see what appears tobe a tall, wavy structure. 

Mangalyaan inadvertently captured a giantdust devil, the shadow of which stretches out for several kilometres. Once you notice that one, you’ll realisethere’s actually a few in the image, each with a long windy shadow. Orographic clouds have also been seen overOlympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system. From the base to the peak, Olympus Mons isthree times taller than Everest, and is 600km wide. As a result, it is easily visible and recognisableeven from this altitude. From this view, you can also easily see wherelava from ancient eruptions has flowed down onto the plains surrounding the volcano. Looking a bit further across, you see threemore big shield volcanoes, with a few more smaller ones to the north. You’ll also start to notice, this weirdpatch which looks almost like a labyrinth, aptly called Noctis Labyrinthus. In a similar vein to the Elysium fossae, NoctisLabyrinthus is thought to have formed because of the huge volcanoes to the north west, butthis time due perhaps to collapsed magma chambers deep under the surface. Research is ongoing! Connected to Noctis Labyrinthus is the famousscar of Mars, Valles Marineris. What I really love about these images is thatjust like the Viking missions, water ice fog can be seen filling the chasm. This valley is 4000km across, and channelsseem to flow out of it to the east into chaos regions, similar but smaller than Noctis Labyrinthus. This hemisphere of Mars is lower than therest, which indicates these outflow channels, which do look a lot like river channels onEarth, flowed into a once ocean. 

Ground based rovers have since uncovered furtherevidence for this ocean, finding hydrated minerals in these regions. Another really interesting visual landmarkon Mars is Kasei Valles, north of Valles Marineris. Again, this shows a very interesting outflowchannel, starting in the east and flowing to the west, depositing into the same regionbut further north than Valles Marineris in the south. Most scientists propose these channels werecarved out by mega-flooding events in the distant past, when liquid water was abundanton the Martian surface. There’s also some argument that glacierscarved out these channels. In fact, there are a lot of outflow regionsheading into this once ocean, here’s Ares Vallis, again probably carved out by mega-floodingevents. All these channels are too wide to have supporteda constant river system, at least at this size. A very large, yet odd, crater-like structurecan be seen from the Mangalyaan images. This is Orcus Patera, 380km long at its longestpoint. Scientists are a bit baffled about how thiscould have formed. Craters are always circular, plus Orcus Pateraisn’t very deep at only 500m. Volcanic activity could be a cause, but there’sno caldera, and so there have been no theories that scientists can settle on so far. What do you think it could be? Some of the images focusing on the limb ofthe planet have also been able to see Mars’ atmosphere, which I think is quite beautiful. Some very oblique shots can even see a cloudlayer high in the Martian atmosphere. And due to Mangalyaan’s elliptic orbit,sometimes Mars’ moon Phobos comes between the planet and the probe, imaged here againstthe backdrop of the planet. The last thing I want to showcase in thisvideo is the prevailing wind direction on some parts of the planet. Even though we are quite zoomed out by here,in this image, showing a few thousand kilometres across, we can easily see where craters haveblocked the darker dust from moving across the surface with the wind. The wind direction in these parts must havebeen like this for a while for it to be so noticeable from space. A closer look at the surface shows how thiseffect can happen with smaller craters too. I’ve really enjoyed making this video, lookingat a far more zoomed out view of Mars than what the HiRISE camera on NASA’s MRO couldprovide.

 This has meant we could explore some of Mars’largest features as a whole, what they actually look like from orbit, and not zoomed in sections. I believe both types of missions have theirplace to further our understanding of our perhaps most intriguing neighbour. This video also coincides with the launchof the Astrum Hindi channel, so if you come from India and want to see dubbed Astrum videosin Hindi, you can check them out with the link in the description! Did you enjoy learning about what Mangalyaansaw today? As you can see, learning about science - ormaths for that matter – doesn’t have to be dull, in fact, if it wasn’t for mathsand science, missions like this one wouldn’t be possible! Want to know how it was done? Brilliant have a ton of interactive and engagingcourses for ambitious and curious people, who want to excel at problem solving and understandingthe world, and space. They have courses that will ease you intophysics and maths, using real-world scenarios to help to conceptualise and realise the problems. So give it a go! You can sign up for free today, and by usingthe link brilliant.org/astrum/ you can get 20% off their annual Premium subscriptionto get unlimited access to all of Brilliant's interactive math, science and computer sciencecourses. Thanks for watching! Want a more close-up view of Mars? Check out our Mars HiRISE series here. And a big thank you to those that supportthe channel through Patreon or Youtube’s membership. If you would like to support too, find thelink in the description! All the best, and see you next time.