The waxing gibbous
9.4 days old
71.2 percent full
October 25, 2017
By Mike Wall
A webcam aboard a European Mars orbiter (click here) has snapped some striking images of big clouds scudding through the Red Planet's atmosphere.
The photos, taken by the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) aboard the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft, constitute a global survey of odd, high-altitude Martian clouds, researchers said.That survey provides a new perspective on the planet's atmosphere, the scientists added: Whereas most other Martian orbiters' cameras zoom in for close-up looks at the surface, the lower-resolution VMC gives a wide-angle view of much of the planet's "limb," or edge....
