NASA recently shared an image on its Instagram handle leaving the netizens completely stunned. The space agency has released a new image of a Mars crater. In the caption, NASA wrote, “You’re looking at 0° longitude on Mars—the Greenwich Observatory equivalent on the Red Planet. The Greenwich Observatory marks Earth’s Prime Meridian, which is is a north-south line that defines where east meets west, and is used as the zero-reference line for astronomical observations.” The image has been taken by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The larger crater within this crater, called the Airy Crater, defined Mars’ zero longitude.
Since uploaded, the image has managed to gather over 450K likes. One user made a comment that it “looks like alien footprints” on Mars. Another person wrote, “Something spectacular that leaves you speechless!!!” One Instagram user commented, “Beautiful picture of Mars I’m 57 and I always wondered what I would be able to see during my life and these new pictures are interesting.”
This comes just after NASA’s Hubble telescope confirmed that a comet with a nucleus 50 times bigger than normal is flying towards the earth. The estimated speed is 22,000 miles per hour, which is roughly 35,404 km per hour. David Jewitt, a professor of planetary science and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in a press release by NASA said, “This comet is literally the tip of the iceberg for many thousands of comets that are too faint to see in the more distant parts of the solar system. We’ve always suspected this comet had to be big because it is so bright at such a large distance. Now we confirm it is.” Termed C/2014 UN271, it was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein. It was first observed in November 2010, when it was a whopping 3 billion miles from the Sun. Since then, it has been massively studied.
