A Rotating True Color View of the Martian South Pole

  • 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 (¼ 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.

A rotating view of the Martian south pole from Viking imagery

A close-up view of the Martian south pole with grid lines, from Viking imagery

A close-up view of the Martian south pole with grid lines, from Viking imagery

An equatorial view of Mars using Viking imagery

An equatorial view of Mars using Viking imagery

A view of the southern hemisphere of Mars using Viking imagery

A view of the southern hemisphere of Mars using Viking imagery

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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