If you're interested in exploring Mars, prepare to experience it in a real-time setting.
The European Space Agency has said it is planning to stream the first live images from Mars on YouTube by the end of the year. The stream will begin at 6:50 p.m. Central European Time, or noon ET, and reveal a new image about every 50 seconds.
The update will also be available on ESA's Twitter account and the hashtag MarsLIVE, the agency said.
Normally we see images from Mars and know that they were taken days before, said James Godfrey, the spacecraft operations manager at ESA's mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany. I'm excited to see Mars as it is now, as close as we can possibly get. Is it possible to see images of Mars? If so, how? The ESA said that yes, but not live.
The images of the red planet are usually taken when a spacecraft is not in direct contact with the earth, which is why they are stored until they can be sent back, ESA said.
If Mars and Earth are in orbit around the sun, the messages that journey through space can take anywhere from 3 to 22 minutes.
To begin the live stream, the ESA estimates it will take about 17 minutes for the light needed to form the images to travel directly from Mars to Earth and then another minute to get through the wires and servers on the ground.
Note, we have never tried something like this before, so exact travel times for signals on the ground remain a little uncertain, the agency said in a statement.