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It might be passing over areas that aren’t interesting to any scientists or the angle of the Sun might not be right for the kinds of images the scientists need. Even with this competition, however, there are times when an orbiter doesn’t have much to do. Planetary scientists must compete for the limited number of images these spacecraft will be able to capture. The Moon and Mars are so big that the orbiters will run out of fuel long before they take high resolution images of the entire surface. These narrow angle images give planetary scientists unprecedented views of geological features from collapsed lava tubes on the Moon to drifting sand dunes on Mars.īut that detail comes at a price. One of these is a narrow angle camera that takes very detailed pictures, but only along a narrow strip beneath the spacecraft’s orbit. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have several cameras on board that image the surfaces of those distant worlds. Nasa-supported programs from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona even help amateurs explore the Moon and Mars by picking targets for cameras on Nasa spacecraft. It's in those gaps that amateurs explore outer space. There are so many things in it that professionals can't look at everything.