Motherboard

No, NASA’s not sending budding space shutterbugs to the Red Planet (at least not until the agency ends up really desperate to raise cash). But they are asking the public to suggest subjects via the web for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, its super powerful camera currently orbiting Mars.

Letting the public in on the Martian photo shoot isn’t just about getting more people psyched about space exploration. Researchers hope that crowdsourcing imaging targets will increase the camera’s already bountiful science return. Despite the thousands of pictures already taken, less than 1 percent of the Martian surface has been imaged.

This ain’t no point-and-shoot. Since it arrived there in 2006, the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has proved a success (especially compared with that lost lander), recording nearly 13,000 observations of Martian terrain. Each image covers dozens of square miles and reveal details as small as a desk. A single HiRISE image can measure 20,000 pixels by 50,000 pixels, which includes a 4,000-by-50,000 pixel region in three colors. It can take a computer up to three hours to process just one of these photos.

“The HiRISE team is pleased 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,” said Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the camera and a researcher at the University of Arizona. The idea to let the public pick subjects for the camera follows on the original concept of the HiRISE instrument, which its planners nicknamed it “the people’s camera.”

By using the HiRISE’s online tool, users can suggest Martian pixels to shoot, see where images have been taken, and check which targets already have been suggested. In addition to identifying the location on a map, NASA says that anyone nominating a target will be asked to give 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.

The HiRISE science team will then evaluate suggestions and put high-priority ones into a queue. Thousands of pending targets from scientists and the public will be imaged when the orbiter’s track and other conditions are right.

NASA should expect lots of suggestions from a whole new generation of space explorers, and I’m not talking about alien formation seekers. There’ll probably be a surge of late-night requests for shots of those amazing dunes that emerged last week, by late-night pixel-pickers eager to get a closer look at those dank Martian trees.. And if last week’s discovery of some special moon dust at Cape Canaveral is any indication, some of these photographers may already be working in NASA’s own facilities. After all, the project’s called HiWish.