After years of work, the European Space Agency has finally released the first and most detailed 3-D images of a large part of the Martian surface.
This set of topographic images is known as the Mars Express Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and was obtained using the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board the Mars Express.
The images provide information about the height of cliffs, the altitude and slope of lava and water flows or the altitude of desert plains in Mars. With such topographic information, researchers will also be able to better interpret other data sets such as those from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding.
The ESA team behind this project now hopes to include new sets of high-resolution data to the DTM as the Mars Express continues its mission in orbit around the planet for at least one more year.
The Mars Express-HRSC DTMs are available to the scientists through the archives at the Planetary Science Archive at ESA and the Planetary Data System at NASA. A joint website of FU Berlin and DLR provides the capability to the general public to visualize the data online.
Original Source (s):
ESA’s Press Release
Picture Credits (s):
European Space Agency
0 Responses to “ESA releases first 3D images of Mars”