Olympia Planum: topographical image map
Olympia Planum: topographical image map
Its nine sensors, arranged at right angles to the north-south flight direction, record the surface of Mars from different angles and in four colour channels. From the four inclined stereo channels and the nadir channel, which is directed perpendicular to the surface of Mars, scientists at the Freie Universität Berlin and the DLR Institute of Planetary Research compute digital terrain models, which assign elevation information to each pixel. The elevation information can be interpreted from the legend at the top right of the image. They are related to the areoid, an imaginary surface of equal gravitational pull on Mars. This clearly shows the terraced structure of the ice cap, which is connected to the plains of Olympia Planum on the left-hand side of the image. The difference in altitude from south (left) to north is over 3000 metres.
