Today's VIS image shows part of McMurdo Crater. Located on the margin of the south polar cap, the layering of the ice is visible along the crater rim. McMurdo Crater is name for McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Orbit Number: 84572 Latitude: -84.2613 Longitude: 3.22696 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2021-01-06 22:46 https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24405

This 360-degree view, called the McMurdo panorama, from NASA Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, where the rover stayed on a small hill known as Low Ridge from April through October 2006.

This self-portrait of NASA Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is a polar projection of the 360-degree McMurdo panorama made from images taken by Spirit from April through October 2006.

Spirit Mars Rover in McMurdo Panorama, Polar Projection

This false color view, called the McMurdo panorama, from NASA Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, where the rover stayed on a small hill known as Low Ridge from April through October 2006.

Spirit Mars Rover in McMurdo Panorama False Color

This self-portrait of NASA Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is a false color polar projection of the 360-degree McMurdo panorama made from images taken by Spirit from April through October 2006.

Spirit Mars Rover in McMurdo Panorama, Polar Projection False Color

This 360-degree view, called the McMurdo panorama, comes from the panoramic camera aboard NASA Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. From April through October 2006, Spirit has stayed on a small hill known as Low Ridge. 3D glasses are necessary.

McMurdo Panorama from Spirit Winter Haven Stereo

This 360-degree color view, called the McMurdo panorama, comes from the panoramic camera aboard NASA Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. From April through October 2006, Spirit has stayed on a small hill known as Low Ridge. 3D glasses are necessary.

McMurdo Panorama from Spirit Winter Haven Color Stereo

The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a row of valleys west of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. They are so named because of their extremely low humidity and lack of snow and ice cover. This image was acquired December 8, 2002 by NASA Terra spacecraft.

Dry Valleys, Antarctica

NASA Scientific Balloon in Antarctica

NASA image captured December 25, 2011 A NASA scientific balloon awaits launch in McMurdo, Antarctica. The balloon, carrying Indiana University's Cosmic Ray Electron Synchrotron Telescope (CREST), was launched on December 25. After a circum-navigational flight around the South Pole, the payload landed on January 5. The CREST payload is one of two scheduled as part of this seasons' annual NASA Antarctic balloon Campaign which is conducted in cooperation with the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs. The campaign's second payload is the University of Arizona's Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory (STO). You can follow the flights at the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility's web site at <a href="http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/antarctica/ice.htm" rel="nofollow">www.csbf.nasa.gov/antarctica/ice.htm</a> Credit: NASA <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

NASA Scientific Balloon in Antarctica

NASA image captured December 25, 2011 A NASA scientific balloon awaits launch in McMurdo, Antarctica. The balloon, carrying Indiana University's Cosmic Ray Electron Synchrotron Telescope (CREST), was launched on December 25. After a circum-navigational flight around the South Pole, the payload landed on January 5. The CREST payload is one of two scheduled as part of this seasons' annual NASA Antarctic balloon Campaign which is conducted in cooperation with the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs. The campaign's second payload is the University of Arizona's Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory (STO). You can follow the flights at the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility's web site at <a href="http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/antarctica/ice.htm" rel="nofollow">www.csbf.nasa.gov/antarctica/ice.htm</a> Credit: NASA <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

McMurdo Panorama from Spirit Winter Haven False Color

McMurdo Panorama from Spirit Winter Haven

Balloons on Ice: Launch # 2 takes flight in Antarctica

The second of three missions as part of NASA’s Antarctica Long Duration Balloon Flight Campaign was successfully launched at 8:10 a.m. EDT, Dec. 2. The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) from the University of Hawaii at Manoa was launched from Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf near McMurdo Station with support from the National Science Foundation’s United States Antarctic Program. Scientists will use ANITA’s instruments to study the reactions in the core of stars and as they explode via the release of neutrinos that travel to Earth and interact with the Antarctica ice. More: <a href="http://go.nasa.gov/2ghR6Le" rel="nofollow">go.nasa.gov/2ghR6Le</a>

ARC-1990-AC91-2006

This color picture of Antarctica is one part of a mosaic of pictures covering the entire polar continent taken during the hours following Galileo's historic first encounter with its home planet. The view shows the Ross Ice Shelf to the right and its border with the sea. An occasional mountain can be seen poking through the ice near the McMurdo Station. It is late spring in Antarctica, so the sun never sets on the frigid, icy continent. This picture was taken about 6:20 pm PST. From top to bottom, the frame looks across about half of Antarctica.

Historic First Landing of NASA's P-3B in Antarctica

NASA's first ever historic P-3B landing in McMurdo Station, Antarctica on the sea ice runway, which occurred on Nov. 16, 2013. It took the craft 5 days to reach Antarctica from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia. You can see the IceBridge Team waiting to greet the flight crew as they taxied for the very first time right up to the IceBridge team tents. Credit: NASA/Justin Miller/Indiana University <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

Mt. Erebus, Antarctica

This image from NASA Terra spacecraft shows Mount Erebus, the world southernmost historically active volcano, overlooking the McMurdo research station on Ross Island. The 3794-m-high Erebus is the largest of three major volcanoes forming the crudely triangular Ross Island. An elliptical 500 x 600 m wide, 110-m-deep crater truncates the summit and contains an active lava lake within a 250-m-wide, 100-m-deep inner crater. The glacier-covered volcano was erupting when first sighted by Captain James Ross in 1841. Continuous lava-lake activity with minor explosions, punctuated by occasional larger strombolian explosions that eject bombs onto the crater rim, has been documented since 1972, but has probably been occurring for much of the volcano's recent history. The image was acquired December 31, 2013, covers an area of 63 x 73 km, and is located at 77.5 degrees south, 167.1 degrees east. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20239

Balloons on Ice: NASA Launches Antarctica Scientific Balloon Campaign

Cosmic rays and the chemicals and atoms that make up the interstellar space between stars are the focus of this year’s NASA Antarctica Long Duration Balloon Flight Campaign, which kicked into high gear with the launch of the Boron And Carbon Cosmic rays in the Upper Stratosphere (BACCUS) payload Nov. 28. The University of Maryland’s BACCUS mission is the first of three payloads taking flight from a balloon launch site on Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf near McMurdo Station with support from the National Science Foundation’s United States Antarctic Program. Read more: <a href="http://go.nasa.gov/2gCMtyP" rel="nofollow">go.nasa.gov/2gCMtyP</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

C-17 on Runway

A U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft sits on the sea ice runway at the National Science Foundation's McMurdo Station in Antarctica following a transit flight from Christchurch, New Zealand that transported IceBridge personnel and gear on Nov. 12, 2013. The C-17 aircraft that fly to Antarctica are operated by the U.S. Air Force's 62nd and 446th Airlift Wings based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle, Wash. Credit: NASA/Goddard/George Hale NASA's Operation IceBridge is an airborne science mission to study Earth's polar ice. For more information about IceBridge, visit: <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/icebridge" rel="nofollow">www.nasa.gov/icebridge</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

Flight teams compare notes

NASA Operation IceBridge pilot Michael Anderson chats with Lt. Colonel Brent Keenan aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft during a flight from Christchurch, New Zealand, to the U.S. Antarctic Program's McMurdo Station in Antarctica on Nov. 12, 2013. The C-17s that ferry people, equipment and supplies to Antarctica are operated by the U.S. Air Force's 62nd and 446th Airlift Wings based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle, Wash. NASA's Operation IceBridge is an airborne science mission to study Earth's polar ice. In 2013, IceBridge is conducting its first field campaign directly from Antarctica. For more information about IceBridge, visit: <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/icebridge" rel="nofollow">www.nasa.gov/icebridge</a> Credit: NASA/Goddard/Jefferson Beck <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

ASTHROS Mission in Flight (Illustration)

NASA's Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelengths (ASTHROS), seen in this illustration, is a high-altitude balloon mission for studying astrophysical phenomena. Scheduled to launch no earlier than December 2023 from the agency's Long Duration Balloon Camp near McMurdo Station in Antarctica, ASTHROS will aim to fly for 21 to 28 days at an altitude of about 130,000 feet (24.6 miles or 40 kilometers). At that altitude, ASTHROS can observe wavelengths of light blocked by Earth's atmosphere. When fully inflated, the 40 million-cubic-foot helium balloon will be about 400 feet (150 meters) wide, or roughly the size of a football stadium. The ASTHROS telescope features a lightweight 8.4-foot (2.5-meter) primary mirror to collect far-infrared light – one of the largest to ever fly on a high-altitude balloon mission. Balloon missions typically cost less than space missions and take less time to move from early planning to deployment. They also employ new technologies that can then be used on future space missions. The mission's main science goal is to study stellar feedback, the process by which living stars disperse and reshape clouds of gas and dust that may eventually form new stars. Feedback regulates star formation in many galaxies, and too much can halt star formation entirely. ASTHROS will look at several star-forming regions in our galaxy where feedback takes place, and at distant galaxies containing millions of stars to see how feedback plays out at large scales and in different environments. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA25168

C-17 passengers make use of transit time

Photo taken aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft during a flight from Christchurch, New Zealand, to the U.S. Antarctic Program's McMurdo Station in Antarctica on Nov. 12, 2013. The C-17s that ferry people, equipment and supplies to Antarctica are operated by the U.S. Air Force's 62nd and 446th Airlift Wings based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle, Wash. NASA's Operation IceBridge is an airborne science mission to study Earth's polar ice. In 2013, IceBridge is conducting its first field campaign directly from Antarctica. For more information about IceBridge, visit: <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/icebridge" rel="nofollow">www.nasa.gov/icebridge</a> Credit: NASA/Goddard/Jefferson Beck <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

C-17 boarding

Operation IceBridge team members board a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft for a flight from Christchurch, New Zealand, to the U.S. Antarctic Program's McMurdo Station in Antarctica on Nov. 12, 2013. The C-17s that ferry people, equipment and supplies to Antarctica are operated by the U.S. Air Force's 62nd and 446th Airlift Wings based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle, Wash. NASA's Operation IceBridge is an airborne science mission to study Earth's polar ice. In 2013, IceBridge is conducting its first field campaign directly from Antarctica. For more information about IceBridge, visit: <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/icebridge" rel="nofollow">www.nasa.gov/icebridge</a> Credit: NASA/Goddard/Jefferson Beck <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

Balloon Program Wraps up in Antarctica, Heading to New Zealand

Caption: A NASA Super Pressure Balloon with the COSI payload is ready for launch from McMurdo, Antarctica. Credit: NASA More info: NASA’s globetrotting Balloon Program Office is wrapping up its 2014-2015 Antarctic campaign while prepping for an around-the-world flight launching out of Wanaka, New Zealand, in March. After 16 days, 12 hours, and 56 minutes of flight, operators successfully conducted a planned flight termination of the Suborbital Polarimeter for Inflation Dust and the Epoch of Reionization (SPIDER) mission Saturday, Jan. 18, the final mission of the campaign. Other flights in the 2014-2015 Antarctic campaign included the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA-III) mission as well as the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) payload flown on the developmental Super Pressure Balloon (SPB). ANITA-III successfully wrapped up Jan. 9 after 22 days, 9 hours, and 14 minutes of flight. Flight controllers terminated the COSI flight 43 hours into the mission after detecting a small gas leak in the balloon. Crews are now working to recover all three instruments from different locations across the continent. The 6,480-pound SPIDER payload is stationary at a position about 290 miles from the United Kingdom’s Sky Blu Logistics Facility in Antarctica. The 4,601 pound ANITA-III payload, located about 100 miles from Australia’s Davis Station, and the 2,866 pound COSI payload, located about 340 miles from the United States McMurdo Station both had numerous key components recovered in the past few days. Beginning in late January, the Balloon Program Office will deploy a team to Wanaka, New Zealand, to begin preparations for an SPB flight, scheduled to launch in March. The Program Office seeks to fly the SPB more than 100 days, which would shatter the current flight duration record of 55 days, 1 hour, and 34 minutes for a large scientific balloon. “We’re looking forward to the New Zealand campaign and hopefully a history-making flight with the Super Pressure Balloon,” said Debbie Fairbrother, NASA’s Balloon Program Office Chief. Most scientific balloons see altitude variances based on temperature changes in the atmosphere at night and during the day. The SPB is capable of missions on the order of 100 days or more at constant float altitudes due to the pressurization of the balloon. “Stable, long-duration flights at near-space altitudes above more than 99 percent of the atmosphere are highly desirable in the science community, and we’re ready to deliver,” said Fairbrother. In addition to the SPB flight in March, the Balloon Program Office has 10 more balloon missions planned through September 2015 to include scheduled test flights of the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator, which is testing new technologies for landing larger, heavier payloads on Mars. NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility manages the agency’s Scientific Balloon Program with 10 to 15 flights each year from launch sites worldwide. The balloons are massive in volume; the average-sized balloon could hold the volume of nearly 200 blimps. Previous work on balloons have contributed to confirming the Big Bang Theory. For more information on NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program, see: <a href="http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code820/index.html" rel="nofollow">sites.wff.nasa.gov/code820/index.html</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>

Wonders in the Antarctic Sea and Sky

Wonders in the Antarctic Sea and Sky NASA aircraft and scientists have returned to the United States after a short ice-surveying mission to #Antarctica. Despite having only a week of flying time, the team returned with crucial scientific data and a trove of spectacular aerial photographs. The flights over Antarctica were part of Operation #IceBridge, a multi-year mission to monitor conditions in Antarctica and the Arctic until a new ice-monitoring satellite, ICESat-2, launches in 2016. ICESat-1 was decommissioned in 2009, and IceBridge aircraft have been flying ever since. Laser altimeter and radar data are the primary products of the mission, but IceBridge project scientist Michael Studinger almost always has his digital camera ready as well. On November 24, 2013, he took this photograph of a multi-layered lenticular cloud hovering near Mount Discovery, a volcano about 70 kilometers (44 miles) southwest of McMurdo. Lenticular #clouds are a type of wave cloud. They usually form when a layer of air near the surface encounters a topographic barrier, gets pushed upward, and flows over it as a series of atmospheric gravity waves. Lenticular clouds form at the crest of the waves, where the air is coolest and water vapor is most likely to condense into cloud droplets. The bulging sea ice in the foreground is a pressure ridge, which formed when separate ice floes collided and piled up on each other. Read more: <a href="http://1.usa.gov/18lXIQS" rel="nofollow">1.usa.gov/18lXIQS</a> Photograph courtesy of Michael Studinger. Caption by Adam Voiland of NASA's Earth Observatory. <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a> <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a>