Planet Four Giveaway

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the launch of  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.  Strapped to  an Atlas V rocket, the spacecraft was sent it on its way from  Cape Canaveral Florida to its ultimate destination, the Red Planet. Ever since its arrival after a 7 month journey and orbit insertion in March 2007, the orbiter and the HiRISE camera have been instrumental for larger and ever more sophisticated robot rovers and landers being sent to explore Mars. Equipped with the Context Camera (CTX) and the HiRISE camera among other instruments, MRO has been watching how the planet has changed for nearly 10 Earth years. I can remember in 2008, the PI of Planet Four, Candy Hansen, showing me some of the first images taken of the South Pole by HiRISE. It’s amazing to think that the instruments are still doing cutting edge science and producing a long term dataset that enable scientists and the public to get a birds eye view of the Martian surface and see how it is changing over time.

This has been especially true for the seasonal processes campaign which focuses in large part on HiRISE imaging of the  fans and spiders on the South Pole of Mars. We present you those images on the Planet Four website in order to map the  dark fans and blotches and see how their appearance and location on the Sole Pole change over a season and over the 5 Martian years. Your efforts on Planet Four are important in our quest to understand the Red Planet.As a way to give back and say thanks for your time and effort marking fans and blotches, we’re setting up a  giveaway to mark this MRO anniversary. Starting on this coming Sunday (August 16, 2015) for the next four weeks, we’ll be giving away  some lovely HiRISE stickers (thanks to our friends the HIRISE team) and Zooniverse stickers (thanks to the Zooniverse team) that are perfect for a laptop, tablet, suitcase, or any surface a Planet Four Mars Explorer wants to proudly display their love for Mars, HIRISE and the Zooniverse.

How does this work?  Getting registered for the draw is super easy, all you need to do is keep doing what you normally do.  Log in with your Zooniverse account and classify on the original Planet Four website  each week for the next four weeks. By classifying,  you’ll be entered in the weekly draw. You’ll be contacted using the email address we have on file with your Zooniverse account. Make sure to check that  your contact information is update in your Zooniverse  profile (go to http://www.zooniverse.org log in and  click on the top right icon by your username. On the drop down menu that will appear click on Settings. Then click on the Email tab on the Settings page)

Good luck and in the meantime if you have a spare moment or two, help celebrate the accomplishments of MRO and HiRISE today by reviewing the first year images of Ithaca today at http://www.planetfour.org