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Altimeter and Surveyor and Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter (MGS)
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Radar Slice Through Subsurfa
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| title |
Radar Slice Through Subsurface of Equatorial Deposits on Mars |
| description |
This image combining a topographic map viewed obliquely (color portion of image) with a radargram of the subsurface (monochrome portion) shows features of mysterious Martian deposits named the Medusae Fossae Formation. The westward-looking view includes the divide between Martian highlands on the south and lowlands on the north, spanning a range from about 12 degrees south latitude (left edge of image) to 5 degrees north latitude (right edge of image). The deposits of the Medusae Fossae Formation are found in the lowlands along the divide, in the center foreground. The radar sounder on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has revealed echoes from what is interpreted as a boundary between the overlying deposits and underlying lowland plains buried by these deposits. The radar information presented here is from downward-looking radar observations by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS, jointly funded by NASA and the Italian Space Agency) as Mars Express flew a south-to-north path at about 188 degrees east longitude. The topographic map, using 1990s data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter, extends from that transect to about 135 degrees east longitude. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages NASA's roles in Mars Express for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Italian Space Agency/Univ. of Rome/Smithsonian |
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3-D View of Mars
| Title |
3-D View of Mars |
| Full Description |
This first three-dimensional picture of Mars' north pole enables scientists to estimate the volume of its water ice cap with unprecedented precision, and to study its surface variations and the heights of clouds in the region for the first time. Approximately 2.6 million of these laser pulse measurements were assembled into a topographic grid of the North pole with a spatial resolution of 0.6 miles (one kilometer) and a vertical accuracy of 15-90 feet (5-30 meters). The principal investigator for MOLA is Dr. David E. Smith of Goddard. The MOLA instrument was designed and built by the Laser Remote Sensing Branch of the Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics at Goddard. The Mars Global Surveyor Mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for the NASA Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. |
| Date |
01/01/1999 |
| NASA Center |
Goddard Space Flight Center |
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Inside Mars
| Title |
Inside Mars |
| Explanation |
What's inside Mars [ http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagewall/MOLA/mola_3_2000.html ]? From orbit, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/realtime/mgsrt.html ] has recorded detailed images of the red planet since [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/mgs_moc_archive.html ] July 1997. Still, its cameras can not look beneath the surface. But minute changes in the spacecraft's orbital velocity are produced by variations in the planet's gravitational field, and these changes are related to interior density fluctuations. When the subtle orbital changes were measured using MGS radio science [ http://nova.stanford.edu/projects/mgs/ ] experiments and combined with the accurate Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter topographical data [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990528.html ], researchers were able to produce a map of the thickness of the martian crust [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/sci/mola/mar10-2000/internal_paper.html ]. In this color cut-away diagram of the results, red colors correspond to thin and blue to thick areas of the crust which rides above the martian mantle [ http://banzai.msi.umn.edu/mars/ ]. From the global map, the crust is seen [ http://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/spacesci/mars/mars.htm ] to range from about 20 to 50 miles thick and shows a dramatic difference between the generally thinner northern hemisphere to thicker southern hemisphere crust. For the newly formed planet, the thin crust would have promoted rapid cooling [ http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagewall/MOLA/pressrelease.txt ] and may have given rise to a large northern ocean [ http://earthsky.com/1999/es990519.html ] on early Mars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970627.html ]. |
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The Topography of Mars
| Title |
The Topography of Mars |
| Explanation |
Mars has its ups and downs. Visible on the above interactive topographic map [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/Mars_topography_from_MOLA/ ] of the surface of Mars [ http://www.nineplanets.org/mars.html ] are giant volcanoes [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000529.html ], deep valleys [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search?Mars+valley ], impact craters [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010108.html ], and terrain considered unusual [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010327.html ] and even mysterious [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980407.html ]. Particularly notable are the volcanoes of the Tharsis province [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990618.html ], visible on the left in (false-color) red and white, which are taller than any mountains on Earth [ http://www.highalpex.com/Peaklist/top100.html ]. Just to the left of center is Valles Marineris [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950720.html ], a canyon much longer and deeper than Earth's Grand Canyon [ http://www.nps.gov/grca/ ]. On the right in blue is the Hellas Planitia [ http://www.solarviews.com/cap/mgs/mgstopo5.htm ], a basin over 2000 kilometers wide that was likely created by a collision with an asteroid [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/asteroids.html ]. Mars has many smooth lowlands in the north [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980924.html ], and many rough highlands in the south [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991203.html ]. This map was created by the Mars Orbital Laser Altimeter [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html ] (MOLA) on board the robot Mars Global Surveyor [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ] currently orbiting Mars [ http://www.sciam.com/1196issue/1196kargel.html ]. MOLA measures heights on Mars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/mars.html ] by precisely determining the time it takes for a low power laser beam [ http://www.howstuffworks.com/laser.htm ] to bounce off [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/measure.html ] the surface. Zoom in by clicking anywhere on the above map [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/map_lab.html ]. |
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All of Mars
| Title |
All of Mars |
| Explanation |
From pole [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap981216.html ] to pole [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991203.html ], from east to west, this is all of Mars [ http://www.nineplanets.org/mars.html ]. The above picture [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/ngs.html ] was digitally reconstructed from over 200 million laser altimeter measurements [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/measure.html ] taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/overvu/overview.html ] currently orbiting Mars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/mars.html ]. The image strips Mars [ http://www.solarviews.com/eng/mars.htm ] of its clouds [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010417.html ] and dust [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001009.html ], and renders the whole surface visible simultaneously in its true daytime color. Particularly notable are the volcanoes [ http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/world.html ] of the Tharsis province [ http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/planet_volcano/mars/Shields/tharsis. html ], visible on the left, which are taller than any mountains on Earth. Just to the left of center is Valles Marineris [ http://www.solarviews.com/cap/mars/me07s078.htm ], a canyon much longer and deeper Earth's Grand Canyon [ http://www.kaibab.org/geology/gc_geol.htm ]. On the right, south of the center, is the Hellas Planitia [ http://cmex- www.arc.nasa.gov/CMEXCD/NSTA95/TeachCen/TOPO/Act3/Act3.htm ], a basin over 2000 kilometers wide that was likely created by a collision with an asteroid [ http://space.about.com/science/space/library/weekly/aa022597.htm ]. Mars has many smooth lowlands in the north, and many rough highlands in the south. Mars has just passed its closest approach [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010615.html ] to Earth since 1988 and can be seen shining brightly in the evening sky. |
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Carving Ma'adim Vallis
| Title |
Carving Ma'adim Vallis |
| Explanation |
Just as erosion from the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon [ http://www.aqd.nps.gov/grd/parks/grca/ ] on Earth, a river of flood water may have carved Ma'adim Vallis, one of the largest canyons on Mars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970627.html ]. Researchers have presented strong evidence [ http://www.nasm.edu/nasm/pa/nasmnews/pr/research/ 062002.htm ] for such a scenario [ http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/296/5576/2209 ] based on elevation data recorded by the MOLA [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html ] (Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter) experiment on the Mars Global Surveyor [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ] spacecraft. This false-color, detailed, topographical [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010628.html ] map of MOLA data shows in blue the area of an enormous complex of lakes that are thought [ http://www.nasm.si.edu/ceps/research/mars/irwin_lakes.htm ] to have existed over three and a half billion years ago in the southern highlands of Mars. As the largest lake spilled over the low point in its boundary a torrential flood would have moved north, along the direction indicated by the arrow, carving the sinuous Ma'adim Vallis. At the north end of Ma'adim Vallis, the flood waters would have poured into large, round Gusev Crater [ http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Sept98/GusevMars.html ]. Since standing bodies of surface water are thought to be favorable for ancient martian microbial life [ http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ ast11jun99_1.htm ], Gusev Crater has been suggested as a landing site for future Mars missions [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/future/ express.html ]. |
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Frosty Mountains on Mars
| Title |
Frosty Mountains on Mars |
| Explanation |
What causes the unusual white color on some Martian mountains? The answer can be guessed by noticing that the bright areas disappear as springtime [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030422.html ] takes hold in the south of Mars: dry ice. Dry carbon dioxide ice [ http://www.howstuffworks.com/question264.htm ] sublimates directly to gas from its frozen state. The frosty mountains, named Charitum Montes [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/06/10/ ], have been covered with carbon dioxide [ http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/chemweek/CO2/CO2.html ] ice over the Martian winter. The serene scene pictured above [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/07/02/index.html ] is not a photograph, but rather a computationally constructed digital illusion resulting from the fusion of two color images from the Mars Orbital Camera and topographic data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/sci/mola/mola.html ]. Both instruments operate from the Mars Global Surveyor [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ] robot spacecraft currently orbiting Mars [ http://www.nineplanets.org/mars.html ]. The red planet continues to grow larger [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030724.html ] in terrestrial skies as Earth and Mars move closer to their recent-record closest approach [ http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/18jun_approachingmars.htm ] on August 27. |
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3-D Mars' North Pole
| Title |
3-D Mars' North Pole |
| Explanation |
This dramatic premier [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/agu_f98.html ] three-dimensional visualization of Mars' north pole is based on elevation measurements made by an orbiting laser. During the Spring and Summer [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/npole.html ] of 1998 the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html#Introduction ] (MOLA) flashed laser pulses toward the Martian surface from the Global Surveyor spacecraft and recorded the time it took to detect the reflection [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html#Principles ]. This timing data has now been translated to a detailed topographic map of Mars' north polar terrain [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980924.html ]. The map indicates that the ice cap is is about 1,200 kilometers across, a maximum of 3 kilometers thick, and cut by canyons and troughs up to 1 kilometer deep. The measurements also [ http://earth.agu.org/pubs/toc/gl/gl_25_24.html ] indicate that the cap is composed primarily of water ice with a total volume of only about four percent of planet Earth's Antarctic ice sheet [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap951222.html ]. In all it represents at most a tenth of the amount of water some scientists believe once existed on ancient Mars [ http://www.sciam.com/1196issue/1196kargel.html ]. Where did all the water [ http://humbabe.arc.nasa.gov/mgcm/faq/wetmars.html ] go? |
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Topographical Mars
| Title |
Topographical Mars |
| Explanation |
Contrasting colors trace changing elevations in this new high-resolution topographic map of Mars [ http://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/spacesci/pictures/mola/mars3d.htm ]. Just released [ ftp://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/PAO/Releases/1999/99-71.txt ], the data were gathered in 1998 and 1999 by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html#Introduction ] (MOLA) onboard the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. The martian topography is seen to range over 19 miles between the highest volcanic peaks (white) and the lowest regions (purple). Along with the striking difference [ http://www.msss.com/http/ps/di.html ] between the Red Planet's [ http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/online.bks/mars/contents.htm ] low northern hemisphere (top) and high southern regions, one of the most noticeable features on the map [ http://www-pdsimage.wr.usgs.gov/PDS/public/mapmaker/mapmkr.htm ] is the large blue-purple southern depression corresponding to the Hellas basin. Likely the result of an asteroid impact, Mars' deepest basin is about 1300 miles across making it one of the largest impact features [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960906.html ] in the Solar System. Explorations [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap981216.html ] of MOLA's rich topographic database are expected to produce insights into water flows and the geologic history [ http://helio.estec.esa.nl/intermarsnet/redreport/node20.html ] of Mars. |
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Southern Mars
| Title |
Southern Mars |
| Explanation |
This topographical map [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mpl.html ] of the southern hemisphere of Mars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970627.html ] was generated using data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html ] (MOLA). Flying on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, MOLA has bounced a laser beam off the Martian surface over 200,000,000 times producing a wealth of detailed elevation measurements. The MOLA measurements [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/geodesy.html ] have been color-coded so, for example, the white areas at left are the highest elevations in the southern Tharsis region [ http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/physics.today.html ] and not snow-covered peaks. These areas are more than 6 kilometers above the hypothetical Martian "sea-level". Likewise, deep blues and purples are not water oceans [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970316.html ] but correspond to the lowest elevations (more than 4 kilometers below "sea-level"), like those found within the giant Hellas impact basin at right. In fact, liquid water is not present on Mars' surface today, but may have been [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/MENUS/lake_list.html ] in the past [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/why.html ]. NASA's Mars Polar Lander [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/lander/index.html ] spacecraft is scheduled to embark on an investigation [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/lander/science.html ] of the role of water in the climate history of the Red Planet. The lander is targeted to touch down [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/12_2_99_mplsite/index.html ] within the long, thin ellipse [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/12_2_99_mplcolor/index.html ] indicated here just below the Martian South Pole today at 20:00 UTC [ http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/zones2.html ]. |
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Location of Mars Express Rad
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| title |
Location of Mars Express Radar Track, Orbit 1892 |
| Description |
This graphic maps the ground-range projection of a radargram of data collected by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) during the 1,892nd orbit of the European Space Agency's Mars Express. The orbit crosses the Martian lowland plains of a region named Chryse Planitia. Rim walls and interior ring structures of impact basins produce parabolic-shaded echoes. Color-coding on the base map is topographical information from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. The inset shows that parabolic-shaped echoes in the radargram project to circular arcs, indicating the presence of a buried impact basin. The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. Credit: ASI/NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Rome |
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Buried Basins Discovered by
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Buried Basins Discovered by Radar |
| Description |
This image maps the locations of 11 ancient buried basins discovered by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. The locations and diameters inferred from the radar echoes are shown in black. Color-coding on the base map is topographical information from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. Credit: ASI/NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Rome |
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Topographic Map of Chryse Pl
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| title |
Topographic Map of Chryse Planitia with Location of Possible Buried Basin |
| Description |
This topographic map, based on data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, shows the ground track of the 1,892nd and the 1,903rd orbits of Mars Express and the arc structures detected by that orbiter's Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS). The arc structures are interpreted to be part of a buried impact basin about 250 kilometers (155 miles) in diameter. The topographic relief represented in the image is 1 kilometer (0.6 mile), from low (purple) to high (red). The projected arcs are shown in red for orbit 1892 and white for orbit 1903. There is no obvious feature in the surface topography that corresponds to the buried feature identified with MARSIS data. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the MARSIS instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter is an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. Credit: ASI/NASA/ESA/Univ. of Rome/JPL/MOLA Science Team |
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MARSIS Uncovers Underground
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MARSIS Uncovers Underground Ice |
| Description |
The upper image is a radargram from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), showing data from the subsurface of Mars in the layered deposits that surround the north pole. The lower image shows the position of the ground track on a topographic map of the area based on Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter data. The images are 458 kilometers (285 miles) wide. The MARSIS echo trace splits into two traces to the right of center, at the point where the ground track crosses from the smooth plains onto the elevated layered deposits on the right. The upper trace is the echo from the surface of the deposits, while the lower trace is interpreted to be the boundary between the lower surface of the deposits and the underlying material. The strength of the lower echo suggests that the intervening material is nearly pure water ice. The time delay between the two echoes reaches a maximum of 21 microseconds at the right of the image, corresponding to a thickness of 1.8 kilometer (1.1 mile) of ice. The total elevation difference shown in the topographic map is about 2 kilometers (1.2 mile) between the lowest surface (magenta) and the highest (orange). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter is an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. Credit: ASI/NASA/ESA/Univ. of Rome/JPL/MOLA Science Team |
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*Full Res(984 kB)**High View of Melas* Soaring high above Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," viewers look down and catch a sight resembling parts of the desert West of the United States, but on a vastly greater scale. Here the canyon averages over a hundred miles wide, and its floor is heaped with rocks, sediments, and landslide debris. Within the canyon walls lie possibly hundreds of layers filling many pages of Mars' geologic record. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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*Full Res(683 kB)**Winding Side Canyon (Louros Valles)* Viewers experience roller-coaster twists and turns as they fly up a winding tributary valley that feeds into Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars." Geologists think channels such as these were carved by water as it escaped through faults and cracks in the subsurface. This caused the ground above it to collapse, leaving a meandering channel that resembles a stream valley on Earth. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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*Full Res (1.3 MB)**Mars Canyon with Los Angeles for Scale* A "Grand Canyon of Mars" slices across the Red Planet near its equator. This canyon -- Valles Marineris, or the Mariner Valley -- is 10 times longer and deeper than Arizona's Grand Canyon, and 20 times wider. As the picture shows, you could drop the whole Los Angeles basin into a small part of Valles Marineris and leave plenty of room to spare. In length, the canyon extends far enough that it could reach across the United States from East Coast to West Coast, while its rim stands more than 25,000 feet high, nearly as tall as Earth's Mount Everest. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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*Full Res(1.2 MB)**Mars Canyon View* Flying through the canyons and over the ridges of Valles Marineris, viewers can experience some of the thrills that gripped explorers who pushed into unknown regions on Earth. Buried in the rocks of this magnificent Martian canyon lies a history book of Mars that scientists have just begun to open. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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*Full Res(797 MB)**Landslide Run-Out* Ages ago, a giant earthquake shook the walls of Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," and triggered a catastrophic landslide that crashed down 15,000 feet. Diving into the canyon on a simulated aerial flight, viewers fly over this billion-ton rockslide that extends for nearly a hundred miles. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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Radar Slice Through Subsurfa
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| title |
Radar Slice Through Subsurface of Equatorial Deposits on Mars |
| Description |
This image combining a topographic map viewed obliquely (color portion of image) with a radargram of the subsurface (monochrome portion) shows features of mysterious Martian deposits named the Medusae Fossae Formation. The westward-looking view includes the divide between Martian highlands on the south and lowlands on the north, spanning a range from about 12 degrees south latitude (left edge of image) to 5 degrees north latitude (right edge of image). The deposits of the Medusae Fossae Formation are found in the lowlands along the divide, in the center foreground. The radar sounder on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has revealed echoes from what is interpreted as a boundary between the overlying deposits and underlying lowland plains buried by these deposits. The radar information presented here is from downward-looking radar observations by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS, jointly funded by NASA and the Italian Space Agency) as Mars Express flew a south-to-north path at about 188 degrees east longitude. The topographic map, using 1990s data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter, extends from that transect to about 135 degrees east longitude. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Italian Space Agency/Univ. of Rome/Smithsonian |
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Carbon-Dioxide Frost Settlin
…
| title |
Carbon-Dioxide Frost Settling from Seasonal Outbursts on Mars (Movie) |
| Description |
Carbon-Dioxide Frost Settling from Seasonal Outbursts on Mars (Movie) This movie, constructed by overlaying a time series of images taken by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), shows seasonal changes and unearthly processes that occur in Mars' south polar seasonal frost cap. More >> [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/gallery/video/index.html#CarbonDioxideFrost ] |
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Virtual Slice Through Icy La
…
PIA09223
Sol (our sun)
MARSIS, MOLA
| Title |
Virtual Slice Through Icy Layered Deposits Near Mars' South Pole |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Annotated Version The upper image is a radargram from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), showing data from the subsurface of Mars in the ice-rich layered deposits that surround the south pole. The lower image shows the position of the ground track (white line) on a topographic map of the area based on Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter data. The images are 1,580 kilometers (980 miles) wide. The MARSIS echo trace splits into two traces near the left edge of the image, at the point where the ground track crosses from the surrounding plains onto the elevated layered deposits. The upper trace is the echo from the surface of the deposits, while the lower trace is interpreted to be the boundary between the lower surface of the deposits and the underlying material. The strength of the lower echo suggests that the intervening material is nearly pure water ice. Near the image center, several bright bands between the echo traces are likely caused by interaction of the radar waves with internal layers of the deposits. The time delay between the upper and lower traces in the banded area is 20 microseconds, corresponding to a thickness of 1.6 kilometers (1.0 miles) of ice. The total elevation difference shown in the topographic map is about 3 kilometers (2.5 miles) between the lowest surface (dark blue) and the highest (yellow). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. |
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Virtual Slice Through Icy La
…
PIA09223
Sol (our sun)
MARSIS, MOLA
| Title |
Virtual Slice Through Icy Layered Deposits Near Mars' South Pole |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Annotated Version The upper image is a radargram from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), showing data from the subsurface of Mars in the ice-rich layered deposits that surround the south pole. The lower image shows the position of the ground track (white line) on a topographic map of the area based on Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter data. The images are 1,580 kilometers (980 miles) wide. The MARSIS echo trace splits into two traces near the left edge of the image, at the point where the ground track crosses from the surrounding plains onto the elevated layered deposits. The upper trace is the echo from the surface of the deposits, while the lower trace is interpreted to be the boundary between the lower surface of the deposits and the underlying material. The strength of the lower echo suggests that the intervening material is nearly pure water ice. Near the image center, several bright bands between the echo traces are likely caused by interaction of the radar waves with internal layers of the deposits. The time delay between the upper and lower traces in the banded area is 20 microseconds, corresponding to a thickness of 1.6 kilometers (1.0 miles) of ice. The total elevation difference shown in the topographic map is about 3 kilometers (2.5 miles) between the lowest surface (dark blue) and the highest (yellow). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. |
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Bright Lower Echo in Radargr
…
PIA09222
Sol (our sun)
MARSIS, MOLA
| Title |
Bright Lower Echo in Radargram of South Polar Layered Deposits |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Annotated Version The upper image is a radargram from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), showing data from the subsurface of Mars in the ice-rich layered deposits that surround the south pole. The lower image shows the position of the ground track (white line) on a topographic map of the area based on Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter data. The images are 1,250 kilometers (775 miles) wide. The MARSIS echo trace splits into two traces on the left side of the image, at the point where the ground track crosses from the surrounding plains onto the elevated layered deposits. The upper trace is the echo from the surface of the deposits, while the lower trace is interpreted to be the boundary between the lower surface of the deposits and the underlying material. The strength of the lower echo suggests that the intervening material is nearly pure water ice. Near the image center, the bright lower echo abruptly disappears for unknown reasons. The time delay between the two echoes reaches a maximum of 42 microseconds left of center, corresponding to a thickness of 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles) of ice. The total elevation difference shown in the topographic map is about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) between the lowest surface (purple) and the highest (red). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. |
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Bright Lower Echo in Radargr
…
PIA09222
Sol (our sun)
MARSIS, MOLA
| Title |
Bright Lower Echo in Radargram of South Polar Layered Deposits |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Annotated Version The upper image is a radargram from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), showing data from the subsurface of Mars in the ice-rich layered deposits that surround the south pole. The lower image shows the position of the ground track (white line) on a topographic map of the area based on Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter data. The images are 1,250 kilometers (775 miles) wide. The MARSIS echo trace splits into two traces on the left side of the image, at the point where the ground track crosses from the surrounding plains onto the elevated layered deposits. The upper trace is the echo from the surface of the deposits, while the lower trace is interpreted to be the boundary between the lower surface of the deposits and the underlying material. The strength of the lower echo suggests that the intervening material is nearly pure water ice. Near the image center, the bright lower echo abruptly disappears for unknown reasons. The time delay between the two echoes reaches a maximum of 42 microseconds left of center, corresponding to a thickness of 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles) of ice. The total elevation difference shown in the topographic map is about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) between the lowest surface (purple) and the highest (red). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. |
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Upper Surface of Icy Layers
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PIA09226
Sol (our sun)
MARSIS, MOLA
| Title |
Upper Surface of Icy Layers Covering Mars' South Polar Region |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Annotated Version This map shows the topography of the south polar region of Mars. The data were collected by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter between 1997 and 2001. The elevation of the terrain is shown by colors, with purple and blue representing the lowest areas, and orange and red the highest. The total range of elevation shown is about 5 kilometers (3 miles). The black line shows the boundary of the south polar layered deposits, an ice-rich geologic unit that was probed by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. The radar data indicate that the deposit is more than 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles) thick in places, and that the material consists of nearly pure water ice, with only a small component of dust. The MARSIS team also determined that the total volume of ice in the layered deposits is equivalent to a water layer 11 meters (36 feet) deep, if spread evenly across the planet. The boundary of the layered deposits was mapped by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey. The dark circle in the upper center is the area poleward of 87 degrees south latitude, where MARSIS data cannot be collected. The image covers an area 1,670 by 1,800 kilometers (1,035 by 1,115 miles). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. |
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Upper Surface of Icy Layers
…
PIA09226
Sol (our sun)
MARSIS, MOLA
| Title |
Upper Surface of Icy Layers Covering Mars' South Polar Region |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Annotated Version This map shows the topography of the south polar region of Mars. The data were collected by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter between 1997 and 2001. The elevation of the terrain is shown by colors, with purple and blue representing the lowest areas, and orange and red the highest. The total range of elevation shown is about 5 kilometers (3 miles). The black line shows the boundary of the south polar layered deposits, an ice-rich geologic unit that was probed by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. The radar data indicate that the deposit is more than 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles) thick in places, and that the material consists of nearly pure water ice, with only a small component of dust. The MARSIS team also determined that the total volume of ice in the layered deposits is equivalent to a water layer 11 meters (36 feet) deep, if spread evenly across the planet. The boundary of the layered deposits was mapped by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey. The dark circle in the upper center is the area poleward of 87 degrees south latitude, where MARSIS data cannot be collected. The image covers an area 1,670 by 1,800 kilometers (1,035 by 1,115 miles). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. |
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The Geodesy Campaign
PIA02023
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
The Geodesy Campaign |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Every day, Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) circles the red planet just over twelve times, and from their vantage point at 400 km altitude, the fisheye lenses of the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)Wide Angle (WA) cameras can see the entire surface. During typical operations, highly-summed two-color image strips are transmitted for each orbit and assembled into daily global weather maps, with a resolution of about 7.5 km (4.6 miles) per pixel. The small size and low resolution of these strips leaves most of the data bandwidth available for higher-priority Narrow Angle images. During May 1999, however, the Wide Angle cameras are being used instead to map the whole planet at the intrinsic resolution of the WA camera -- 230 meters (750 feet) per pixel. While the blue WA camera continues to capture the global map so that daily weather can still be monitored, the other WA camera (with the red filter) is building up swaths of full-resolution coverage. The Deep Space Network is tracking the spacecraft 24 hours a day during this geodesy campaign, and imaging data are being returned for about two-thirds of the time at 69 kbits/sec(somewhat faster than a 56K modem). During the other third of the time, the spacecraft is transmitting back to Earth one day's worth of recorded data from the other science instruments. Geodesy is the measurement of a planet's shape and the location of features on its surface. The intent of the geodesy campaign is to acquire, during a short period of time, simultaneous measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), the Radio Science (RS)investigation, and the MOC. MOLA observations provide precise, absolute measurements of a set of profiles around the planet, but their spacing is quite large relative to their resolution. RS measurements provide detailed information about the position of the spacecraft, critical to processing both the MOC and MOLA data. MOC provides both a higher resolution base map on which the other data can be overlain and, using stereoscopic measurements, provides the potential for a ten-fold improvement in the spatial resolution of the topography. Owing to the nature of the MGS orbit, the groundtrack returns to within about 30 km of a given orbit 88 orbits (about one week) later. Thus, it takes a week to build up global coverage at full resolution. Figure MOC2-127a [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02022 ], shows the planning map of coverage during the first week of the campaign (top), and the resulting actual coverage (bottom). Gaps caused by recorder playbacks must be filled in a second week of imaging by moving the times of the playbacks. Also in the second week, stereo coverage is acquired by re-imaging areas from adjacent orbits at aside-looking angle. Figure MOC2-127b shows an example of such stereo from the Mare Tyrrhenum region, centered at 27.3°S, 227.0°W (NOTE: Red-blue glasses are needed to view the stereo effect). The crater that dominates the center of Figure MOC2-127b is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) across. Stereo coverage will be completed in the third and fourth weeks. The remaining data volume will be used to fill in gaps created by data losses, and to acquire a somewhat lower resolution global color image through the blue wide angle camera. The resulting dataset will provide global color and stereo coverage at about 300 m/pixel. Although similar coverage was obtained by the Viking mission in the late 1970s, Viking took over three years to cover the planet, and there are significant variations in lighting, weather, and surface features in the Viking images. A substantial improvement in the longitude/latitude grid is expected, which will have important benefits to future Mars exploration. Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. |
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The Geodesy Campaign
PIA02022
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
The Geodesy Campaign |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Figure MOC2-127b [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02023 ] is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) across. Stereo coverage will be completed in the third and fourth weeks. The remaining data volume will be used to fill in gaps created by data losses, and to acquire a somewhat lower resolution global color image through the blue wide angle camera. The resulting dataset will provide global color and stereo coverage at about 300 m/pixel. Although similar coverage was obtained by the Viking mission in the late 1970s, Viking took over three years to cover the planet, and there are significant variations in lighting, weather, and surface features in the Viking images. A substantial improvement in the longitude/latitude grid is expected, which will have important benefits to future Mars exploration. Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO., Every day, Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) circles the red planet just over twelve times, and from their vantage point at 400 km altitude, the fisheye lenses of the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)Wide Angle (WA) cameras can see the entire surface. During typical operations, highly-summed two-color image strips are transmitted for each orbit and assembled into daily global weather maps, with a resolution of about 7.5 km (4.6 miles) per pixel. The small size and low resolution of these strips leaves most of the data bandwidth available for higher-priority narrow Angle images. During May 1999, however, the Wide Angle cameras are being used instead to map the whole planet at the intrinsic resolution of the WA camera -- 230 meters (750 feet) per pixel. While the blue WA camera continues to capture the global map so that daily weather can still be monitored, the other WA camera (with the red filter) is building up swaths of full-resolution coverage. The Deep Space Network is tracking the spacecraft 24 hours a day during this geodesy campaign, and imaging data are being returned for about two-thirds of the time at 69 kbits/sec (somewhat faster than a 56K modem). During the other third of the time, the spacecraft is transmitting back to Earth one day's worth of recorded data from the other science instruments. Geodesy is the measurement of a planet's shape and the location of features on its surface. The intent of the geodesy campaign is to acquire, during a short period of time, simultaneous measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), the Radio Science (RS)investigation, and the MOC. MOLA observations provide precise, absolute measurements of a set of profiles around the planet, but their spacing is quite large relative to their resolution. RS measurements provide detailed information about the position of the spacecraft, critical to processing both the MOC and MOLA data. MOC provides both a higher resolution base map on which the other data can be overlain and, using stereoscopic measurements, provides the potential for a ten-fold improvement in the spatial resolution of the topography. Owing to the nature of the MGS orbit, the groundtrack returns to within about 30 km of a given orbit 88 orbits (about one week) later. Thus, it takes a week to build up global coverage at full resolution. Figure MOC2-127a shows the planning map of coverage during the first week of the campaign (top), and the resulting actual coverage (bottom). Gaps caused by recorder playbacks must be filled in a second week of imaging by moving the times of the playbacks. Also in the second week, stereo coverage is acquired by re-imaging areas from adjacent orbits at aside-looking angle. Figure MOC2-127b [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02023 ] shows an example of such stereo from the Mare Tyrrhenum region, centered at 27.3°S, 227.0°W (NOTE: Red-blue glasses are needed to view the stereo effect). The crater that dominates the center of |
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Derived Topographic Model fr
…
PIA03874
Sol (our sun)
MOLA, Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Derived Topographic Model from Mars Global Surveyor Instruments |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
A 50-cm contour map of part of Mars' south polar ice cap. The region shown is roughly a kilometer on a side. The shaded relief model is shown with a tenfold vertical exaggeration. This high resolution Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) topographic model of the surface of Mars is created by combining Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA)gridded topographic data base with information from Mars Orbiter Camera(MOC) Narrow Angle (NA) high resolution images. The top image is a shaded relief model derived from the MGS MOLA gridded topography for a small part of the cap near 87°S 348°W, the area covered is about 3x3 km and the MOLA resolution about 230 meters/pixel. The bottom image is an enhanced shaded relief model of the same area derived by adding high-resolution topographic information from a MOC NA image data to the MOLA topography model. This yields a 3-D model that has a horizontal resolution of 2.75 meters, both models are shown with a 10x vertical exaggeration. Using shape-from-shading or photoclinometry techniques, MOCNA image m0906496 was used to derive high resolution (meter-scale)topography. The photometric properties of the surface, including albedo variations, and scattering of the atmosphere were carefully modeled by constraining the low-frequencies of the MOC NA photoclinometry model to match the high-quality MOLA data. |
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Derived Topographic Model fr
…
PIA03873
Sol (our sun)
MOLA, Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Derived Topographic Model from Mars Global Surveyor Instruments |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This high resolution Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) topographic model of the surface of Mars is created by combining Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) gridded topographic data base with information from Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) Narrow Angle (NA) high resolution images. The top image is a shaded relief model derived from the MGS MOLA gridded topography for a small part of the cap near 87°S 348°W, the area covered is about 3x3 km and the MOLA resolution about 230 meters/pixel. The bottom image is an enhanced shaded relief model of the same area derived by adding high-resolution topographic information from a MOC NA image data to the MOLA topography model. This yields a 3-D model that has a horizontal resolution of 2.75 meters, both models are shown with a 10x vertical exaggeration. Using shape-from-shading or photoclinometry techniques, MOC NA image m0906496 was used to derive high resolution (meter-scale) topography. The photometric properties of the surface, including albedo variations, and scattering of the atmosphere were carefully modeled by constraining the low-frequencies of the MOC NA photoclinometry model to match the high-quality MOLA data. |
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Small Dusty Volcano
PIA03979
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Small Dusty Volcano |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
3 July 2005 This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a small, dust-covered, volcano in the Jovis Fossae region of Mars. While Mars is known for its extremely large volcanoes, such as Olympus Mons, many small volcanoes also occur on the red planet, particularly in the Tharsis region. This small volcano is a good example of those. It was originally found by members of the MGS Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) team during the MGS primary mission. The volcano is old, and cratered. Its surface is mantled by dust, and its caldera (summit depression) has some dust-covered wind ripples on its floor. "Location near": 20.7°N, 111.3°W "Image width": ~3 km (~1.9 mi) "Illumination from": lower left "Season" Northern Autumn |
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Charitum Montes
PIA07040
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Charitum Montes |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
10 November 2004 This is a perspective view of the Charitum Montes, the mountain range that bounds southern Argyre Planitia, created by combining red and blue Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) wide angle images with topography from the MGS Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA). Carbon dioxide frost coats some of the hills, craters, and mountainsides in this southern springtime image. The picture is located near 57°S, 43°W. North is toward the top, south toward the bottom. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The area shown is about 355 km (220 miles) wide. A smaller portion of this image was previously released in July 2003 as "Frosty Mountains [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04606 ]." |
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Mars Gravity Anomoly Map
PIA02817
Sol (our sun)
| Title |
Mars Gravity Anomoly Map |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This is a vertical gravity map of Mars color-coded in mgals based on radio tracking. Note correlations and lack of correlations with the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) global topography. This map was created using MGS data under the direction of Bill Sjogren, a member of the MGS Radio Science Team. The Radio Science Team is led by G. Leonard Tyler of Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. |
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Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
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Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
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Thickness of Mars' South Pol
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PIA09224
Sol (our sun)
MARSIS, MOLA
| Title |
Thickness of Mars' South Polar Layered Deposits |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Annotated Version This map shows the thickness of the south polar layered deposits of Mars, an ice-rich geologic unit that was probed by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS). The MARSIS radar is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. The thickness of the layered deposits was determined by measuring the time delay between radar echoes from the surface and those from the lower boundary, or "bed", of the deposits. The radar data indicate that the deposit, larger than Texas in area, is more than 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles) thick in places, and that the material consists of nearly pure water ice with only a small component of dust. The map was generated by comparing the elevation of the bed as determined by MARSIS with the high-resolution map of surface topography obtained by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. The thickness of the layered deposits is shown by colors, with purple representing the thinnest areas, and red the thickest. The total volume of ice in the layered deposits is equivalent to a water layer 11 meters (36 feet) deep, if spread evenly across the planet. The boundary of the layered deposits was mapped by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey. The dark circle in the upper center is the area poleward of 87 degrees south latitude, where MARSIS data cannot be collected. The map covers an area 1,670 by 1,800 kilometers (1,035 by 1,115 miles). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. |
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Thickness of Mars' South Pol
…
PIA09224
Sol (our sun)
MARSIS, MOLA
| Title |
Thickness of Mars' South Polar Layered Deposits |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Annotated Version This map shows the thickness of the south polar layered deposits of Mars, an ice-rich geologic unit that was probed by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS). The MARSIS radar is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. The thickness of the layered deposits was determined by measuring the time delay between radar echoes from the surface and those from the lower boundary, or "bed", of the deposits. The radar data indicate that the deposit, larger than Texas in area, is more than 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles) thick in places, and that the material consists of nearly pure water ice with only a small component of dust. The map was generated by comparing the elevation of the bed as determined by MARSIS with the high-resolution map of surface topography obtained by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. The thickness of the layered deposits is shown by colors, with purple representing the thinnest areas, and red the thickest. The total volume of ice in the layered deposits is equivalent to a water layer 11 meters (36 feet) deep, if spread evenly across the planet. The boundary of the layered deposits was mapped by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey. The dark circle in the upper center is the area poleward of 87 degrees south latitude, where MARSIS data cannot be collected. The map covers an area 1,670 by 1,800 kilometers (1,035 by 1,115 miles). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. |
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Lower Boundary of Icy Layers
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PIA09225
Sol (our sun)
MARSIS, MOLA
| Title |
Lower Boundary of Icy Layers Covering Mars' South Polar Region |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Annotated Version This map shows the topography of the south polar region of Mars, including topography buried by thick deposits of icy material. The map is a combination of surface elevation data acquired by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter, and subsurface elevation data acquired by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. The black line shows the boundary of the south polar layered deposits, an ice-rich geologic unit that was probed by MARSIS. Elevation values within the black outline, as measured by MARSIS, show the topography at the boundary between the layered deposits and the underlying material, an interface known as the "bed" of the deposits. The elevation of the terrain is shown by colors, with purple and blue representing the lowest areas, and orange and red the highest. The total range of elevation shown is about 5 kilometers (3 miles). The radar data reveal previously undetected features of topography of the bed, including depressions as deep as 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) shown in purple in the near-polar region. The boundary of the layered deposits was mapped by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey. The dark circle in the upper center is the area poleward of 87 degrees south latitude, where MARSIS data cannot be collected. The map covers an area 1,670 by 1,800 kilometers (1,035 by 1,115 miles). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. |
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Lower Boundary of Icy Layers
…
PIA09225
Sol (our sun)
MARSIS, MOLA
| Title |
Lower Boundary of Icy Layers Covering Mars' South Polar Region |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Annotated Version This map shows the topography of the south polar region of Mars, including topography buried by thick deposits of icy material. The map is a combination of surface elevation data acquired by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter, and subsurface elevation data acquired by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. The black line shows the boundary of the south polar layered deposits, an ice-rich geologic unit that was probed by MARSIS. Elevation values within the black outline, as measured by MARSIS, show the topography at the boundary between the layered deposits and the underlying material, an interface known as the "bed" of the deposits. The elevation of the terrain is shown by colors, with purple and blue representing the lowest areas, and orange and red the highest. The total range of elevation shown is about 5 kilometers (3 miles). The radar data reveal previously undetected features of topography of the bed, including depressions as deep as 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) shown in purple in the near-polar region. The boundary of the layered deposits was mapped by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey. The dark circle in the upper center is the area poleward of 87 degrees south latitude, where MARSIS data cannot be collected. The map covers an area 1,670 by 1,800 kilometers (1,035 by 1,115 miles). MARSIS is an instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. NASA and the Italian Space Agency jointly funded the instrument. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. |
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