Resumen de Iceland doubles for Red Planet in camera test
To a Martian, Iceland's volcanic landscape might look a bit like home. No wonder the camera for the next Mars rover just did a test run there. The PanCam (for Panoramic Camera) is set to travel aboard the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover in 20l9. It looks like a three-eyed monster, says Claire Cousins, a planetary scientist at the University of Edinburgh UK. Two eyes on the right and left of the unit scan the terrain for noteworthy features. They also switch between filters set to different wavelengths in order to pick up subtle spectral properties of minerals--a clue to their composition. Nestling between the two is a high-resolution camera.
