The View From The Foothills

This is simply too cool for words.

The Mars Odyssey spacecraft is in orbit around Mars. The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft is in orbit around Mars. The two spacecraft are usually so close together (from the point of view of Earth) that they get tracked at the same time by the same DSN antenna–a relatively new capability, and one that was implemented precisely because of the number of spacecraft now in orbit around Mars.

So a few days ago, Mars Global Surveyor took a picture of Mars Odyssey–the first time one extraterrestrial orbiter has taken a picture of another. And here it is. In fact, there are two images of Mars Odyssey in the one picture, because of how MGS’ camera works and how the two spacecraft were moving. You can read about it on the picture page.