Here's the first glorious photo of Mars snapped by the UAE's Hope probe

 


Mars is the place to be this month. Two spacecraft have already entered orbit around the red planet: China's Tianwen-1 got there on Feb. 10 and, a day earlier, the United Arab Emirates made history, sliding the Al Amal spacecraft into Martian orbit and becoming just the fifth country to reach Earth's dusty, barren neighbor. 


The first Arab interplanetary mission has snapped a couple of images of Mars during its journey so far, but nothing quite like what it delivered Sunday. From a distance of around 15,500 miles (25,000 kilometers), the probe's camera -- officially known as the Emirates eXploration Imager (EXI) -- captured a picturesque view of Mars as a yellowed semicircle against the black curtain of space.


Some of Mars most famous features are visible in the image. Olympus Mons, the biggest volcano in the solar system peeks out at the terminator, where the sunlight wanes, while the three volcanoes of the Tharsis Montes dazzle under a mostly dust-free sky. 

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