The Noctis Labyrinthus region
The Noctis Labyrinthus region
The Noctis Labyrinthus region was already visible in the late 1970s on images acquired by NASA's two Viking orbiters. It marks the transition between the Tharsis bulge with its large volcanoes in the west and the tectonic valley system of Valles Marineris, the 'Valleys of Mariner', named after the Mariner 9 spacecraft, which first imaged the 4000-kilometre-long structure in 1971. The labyrinthine pattern of the 'Labyrinth of the Night' was also created by tectonic expansion fractures in the Martian crust. The mosaic on which the images shown here are based was calculated from eight individual image strips acquired by HRSC.
