Close Up Fly Over of Mars Polar Lander Landing Area in True Color

  • Released Monday, November 22, 1999
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This is one of a series of visualizations showing false-colored renderings of the Martian topography measured by MOLA in the vicinity of the Mars Polar Lander landing site. Blue tones represent elevations of less than 2 kilometers, while reddish tones are greater than about 2.8 kilometers, relative to the mean equatorial height of Mars. The elevation of the landing site is about 2.4 km, midway into the polar layered terrain. The 400 meters (1/4 mile) resolution of the MOLA data gives a smoothed but vertically exaggerated view of the topography. At this scale it is impossible to ascertain the actual roughness at the lander's destination, forcing project directors to make their best guesses based on available data.

Close up fly over of the Mars Polar Lander landing area, using true color imagery from Viking. The topography in these images is from MOLA and is vertically exaggerated by a factor of 5.

Overhead view of the Mars Polar Lander landing site

Overhead view of the Mars Polar Lander landing site

Oblique view of Mars Polar Lander landing site

Oblique view of Mars Polar Lander landing site

For More Information

See http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/stories/MOLA_south_pole/index.html

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Monday, November 22, 1999.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:58 PM EDT.

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