View from southeast to northwest across a volcanic plain in Syrtis Major
View from southeast to northwest across a volcanic plain in Syrtis Major
Realistic perspective views of the Martian surface can be generated from data acquired by the stereo and colour channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, which are oriented at an angle with respect to the planet's surface.
The image shows a vast volcanic plain, characteristic of the Syrtis Major region. Solidified streams of low-viscosity basalt – a lava rich in iron and magnesium that occurs on Earth in what are known as 'flood basalts', or 'trap basalts', for example in the Paraná Basin in Brazil or the Columbia River basalts in the west of the United States – flowed here millions of years ago. Some of the individual streams can still be differentiated by their flow fronts. They run as sinuous lines across the image.
Copyright note:
As a joint undertaking by DLR, ESA and FU Berlin, the Mars Express HRSC images are published under a Creative Commons licence since December 2014: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. This licence will also apply to all HRSC images released to date.