URL copied Image Source : NASA Pictures taken between 2002 and 2004 by Odyssey’s THEMIS imager up this wind-sculpted sea of dark dunes that covers an area as big as Texas at Mars’ northern polar cap. In this enhanced-color image, cooler areas have in bluer tints, while warmer features are depicted in yellows and oranges. Do you know that a NASA spacecraft launched 20 years ago is still working at the Red Planet? For two decades, the longest-lived spacecraft at the Red Planet, 2001 Mars Odyssey, has helped locate water ice, assess landing sites, and study the planet's mysterious moons, NASA said. Launched 20 years ago on April 7, the orbiter, which takes its name from Arthur C. Clarke's classic sci-fi novel "2001: A Space Odyssey", was sent to map the composition of the Martian surface, providing a window to the past so scientists could piece together how the planet evolved.