On July 18, 2021, the EXI camera system onboard the EMM mission obtained a set of multispectral images of a fully-illuminated hemisphere of Mars – which looks very similar to observations routinely carried out by weather satellites orbiting Earth. At the time the images were taken, the Hope spacecraft was at an altitude of about 20,260 kilometres above the surface; with the view centred at 11.0 °N latitude, -79.4 °E longitude, North is toward the top. In terms of the Martian season, it was late spring in the northern hemisphere.

The Emirates Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS) mapped the distribution of atomic oxygen in the planet’s upper atmosphere, showing a dense patch emerging from the nightside into the new day. All three instruments will continue to make observations over the next Martian year to fully map the planet across all times of day in every season.

The Emirates Mars Infrared Spectrometer (EMIRS) mapped the temperature of the atmosphere, tracking how it warmed up over the course of the morning.

This set of images was obtained by the Emirates Mars Mission from an altitude of 29,000 km on 24 May 2021, shortly after the commencement of regular science operations. All three instruments aboard the Hope Probe simultaneously observed the planet to provide a comprehensive snapshot centered on the Arabia Terra region of Mars in the morning. Three images from the Emirates Exploration Imager (EXI) are shown. The 635 nm filter emphasizes bright dust on the surface, while the 320 nm filter highlights the thin water ice clouds. The third is a colored image created from a composite of the red, green and blue EXI images.

These three images of atomic oxygen emission at a wavelength of 103.4 nm from the planet Mars were obtained by the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer instrument on 22 April, 23 April, and 06 May 2021 respectively. The full set of data collected during these observations include far and extreme ultraviolet auroral emissions which have never been imaged before at Mars. The beacons of light that stand out against the dark nightside disk are highly structured discrete aurora, which traces out where energetic particles excite the atmosphere after being funneled down by a patchy network of crustal magnetic fields that originate from minerals on the surface of Mars.

An artist’s impression of how Mars’ discrete aurora might be viewed from different views including the surface of Mars when the emissions of light from the fleeting phenomenon extend into the visible spectrum as predicted by theory. New and striking observations of the discrete aurora from space have been made in the far and extreme ultraviolet bands that are invisible to the human eye. These provide an unprecedented perspective on these uniquely Martian aurorae, which are created when charged particles originating from the Sun's solar wind are funneled down into Mars' thin atmosphere by a patchy network of magnetic fields set up by huge deposits of magnetized minerals in the planetary crust.

This image was acquired by the EMUS instrument on 10 May 2021 and shows sunlight reflecting off the extended cloud of atomic hydrogen gas that surrounds the planet Mars, which is visible in the center only as a dark disk hidden deep inside the fog of gas.

The atomic hydrogen is formed by sunlight splitting water in the lower atmosphere, which then diffuses to the upper atmosphere and escapes to space. The hydrogen is thickest close to Mars, circling the planet with a bright ring of light, and becomes thinner and dimmer further away, with altitudes over 20,000 km observed in this image. The full range of the image is too large for the instrument to view all at once, so it performed four separate scans across the planet, which have been overlaid in the asterisk pattern shown here to form a single image, with areas in black showing where no data was taken. The EMM spacecraft is the only mission at Mars capable of making this type of image, thanks to its high-altitude orbit (20,000 km x 43,000 km).

This EMIRS image was acquired on March 5th, 2021 from an altitude of ~15,000 km. In the surface temperature image (bottom), centered on the Tharsis region of Mars, dawn can be seen towards the right side.

The low surface temperatures observed are due to the dusty nature of the martian surface. An elevated nighttime atmospheric temperature at 25 km altitude (top) is also observed over the Tharsis region.

The colored image from Emirates Exploration Imager (EXI) was generated using the camera’s red (635 nm) and ultraviolet (320 nm) filters. The red channel clearly shows the dark and light features of the Martian surface, while the water ice clouds stand out in the ultraviolet channel.

The image was acquired on April 22, 2021, at a solar longitude of ~35°, which is spring in the northern hemisphere. Of note is the northern polar cap, likely beginning its retreat as the temperatures rise, with distinct clouds encircling it.

Also visible along the terminator and eastern edge is a thin cloud layer as well as fairly continuous cloud cover to the west of Acidalia Planitia — the darker region at the upper center of the image. This composite image highlights the type of data that EXI will be routinely collecting now that the science phase of EMM’s mission has started.

The Emirates Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS) took images of atomic hydrogen surrounding Mars on 24 & 25 April 2021 after transitioning to the Science Orbit. EMM is the first mission at any planet that is able to make images from different points of view over the course of a day.

During the 10 hours 34 minutes between the images, the Hope probe moved from being over the planet near noon and viewing the entire dayside (top) to being over the planet at dusk and seeing both the day and night side (bottom).

These images will be used to reconstruct the 3D distribution of hydrogen and learn more about its production through the process of splitting water molecules by sunlight and its eventual escape to space.

On 15 March 2021, the Emirates eXploration Imager (EXI) captured a monochromatic image of the Cerberus Fossae, a fracture system that stretches for more than 1,000 km across the Martian surface, with a spatial scale of approximately 180 meters/pixel.

The Emirates Mars Mission transitioned from the capture orbit to its science orbit with the successful completion of a 510-second burn of its thrusters. The Hope Probe is now in its final orbit of Mars and ready for its two-year science data gathering – the core aim of the mission. The science phase will commence on 14 April 2021.