Mars in 3D – view over Meridiani Planum looking north
Mars in 3D – view over Meridiani Planum looking north
The most important feature of the image data acquired by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) operated by DLR on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft is the possibility of deriving digital terrain models. These can be related to a reference level and realistic perspective views of the Martian surface generated for each pixel elevation level. This scene shows a view from just north of the equator on the highland plain Meridiani Planum, over the 2000-metre-deep branches of Ares Vallis towards the mountain ranges in the transition zone leading to the northern lowlands of Mars. In the middle distance, some impact craters with diameters of several tens of kilometres are visible. The vertical scale is exaggerated by a factor of three.
