The European spacecraft transmits a webcast from Mars

The European Space Agency transmitted the webcast from Mars Express, which was launched by a Russian rocket from Kazakhstan in 2003.

Each photo took approximately 17 minutes to reach Earth, which is nearly 200 million miles (300 million km) distant, and another minute to pass via the ground stations.

Rainy weather at the deep space-relay antenna in Spain interrupted the broadcast at times.

Nonetheless, enough photographs got it through to please the European space authorities who were hosting the hour-long broadcast. The first images revealed around one-third of Mars, which progressively became larger in the frames before decreasing again as the spacecraft circled the planet. Some of the images clearly showed white clouds.