MOM sends first images of Red Planet

The image was taken from a height of 7,300km, with 376 m spatial resolution

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro's) Mars Orbiter Mission has captured its first image of Mars and sent back to Isro's command centre. The camera, which is one of the five instruments in the spacecraft Mangalyaan, has sent dozens of pictures.

The Indian space agency released the first picture of Mars, which was taken from a height of 7,300 km, with 376 m spatial resolution, on Thursday.

A team of Isro, led by K Radhakrishnan, chairman, Isro, handed over the first picture to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at New Delhi.

Minutes later receiving the picture Modi tweeted saying "Yes, I agree @MarsOrbiter, the view is indeed nice up there!" . He was responding to Isro's tweet posting of the first photo on Twitter, with the caption, "The view is nice up here".

"1st image of Mars, from a height of 7300km; with 376m spatial resolution. MT @MarsOrbiter. The view is nice up here," Indian Space Research Organisation said today in a tweet posted along with snaps of the red planet.

On Wednesday, Modi witnessed Mars Orbiter Mission successfully entering the Red Planet's orbit.

Isro officials have said that dozen of photos are taken by the camera and that everything was working well.

V Koteswara Rao, senior scientist at ISRO, told AFP that 'the Mars colour camera on board started working soon after Orbiter stabilised in the elliptical orbit of Mars and has taken a dozen quality pictures of its surface and its surroundings'. "The camera will also take images of the Red Planet's two moons and beam them to our deep space network centre," he added referring to the base near the southern city of Bangalore.

The spacecraft was carrying Mars Color Camera (MCC), which acquires colour images of planet Mars. The payload weighs about 1.4 kilograms. MCC covers a spectral range of 400 to 700 nanometers - the visible spectrum. The camera includes a multi-element lens assembly and a 2,000 by 2,000-pixel array detector with RGB Bayer Filter.

The MOM is now circling Mars in an elliptical orbit, with its nearest point to Mars (periapsis) being 421.7 km and the farthest point (apoapsis) at 76,993.6 km.

In the coming days, the spacecraft will be tested in the orbit and systematic observation of the planet using its five scientific instruments will begin, said Isro.

Launched on November 5, 2013 from Isro's Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, the spacecraft has travelled around 666 million kilometres to reach Mars.