Hey all ya viewfinders out there ! Tired of zoomin’ on earthlings and landscapes under the sun ? Here is a thrilling chance - Wake up and jump - Now you can try your hand on the red planet ! I can hear you say, ‘We ain’t got a telescope, damn it’ ! Wait, lemme finish - NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission carried a very powerful camera aboard called High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE which has been doing the clicking all these years photographing every possible inch it can, yet covering only less than a percent of total martian surface !

Now NASA and University of Tucson , Arizona’s team for HiRISE have decided to give the public this opportunity to propose imaging targets and share the excitement of seeing your favorite spot on Mars at people-scale resolution ! The idea to take suggestions from the public follows through on the original concept of the HiRISE instrument, when its planners nicknamed it “the people’s camera.” By involving public, the team expects to raise more awareness among the general public for the exploration of the red planet.

All you need to do is to login to the HiRISE team page at http://www.uahirise.org/suggest/ where the team has developed an online mapping tool called ‘HiWish’ to locate the areas of the martial surface where to click next ! You have to give your ‘point of interest’ or target observation a title, explain the potential scientific benefit of photographing the site and put the suggestion into one of the camera team’s 18 science themes. The themes include categories such as impact processes, seasonal processes and volcanic processes.(see below for some of the astonishing Mars images from HiRISE)

Public suggestions will get into a priority queue after evaluation by HiRISE team. Thousands of pending targets from scientists and the public will be imaged when the orbiter’s track and other conditions are right.

Kudos to NASA for proving once again that it is not only the most technically advanced Space research wing but also the most public friendly scientific research organization.

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