3-D Mars

The scientists managing the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter are releasing 3-D images of terrain features on Mars.

The towering 3-D features of Martian canyons and highlands are about to stand out like never before, thanks to data from a high-resolution camera on the Mars Express orbiter.

These data, collected by the camera on the European Space Agency's Mars Express, are allowing scientists to create so-called Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) to look around the Martian surface from different directions and angles, as opposed to the usual bird's-eye view from above provided by previous Mars orbiter cameras. The new data sets have now been released on the Internet, the European Space Agency announced this week.

"Understanding the topography of Mars is essential to understanding its geology," said Gerhard Neukum, HRSC lead scientist at Freie Universität (FU) in Berlin, Germany.

Creating the data for such digital models requires spacecraft to study the same Martian feature at least twice, each time from a different angle. Most previous efforts to do this have involved spacecraft making two orbital passes over features.

The Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) only needs one overhead pass to capture images of a feature from three different angles — on approach, directly underneath and receding into the distance. The camera also obtains altitude measurements for its high-resolution images.

All that data is processed by the German Space Agency (DLR) and FU Berlin for several years before digital models of the Martian surface can start to emerge. Now researchers are selecting the best data to "stitch them together" and develop digital models on a "global scale," Fred Jansen, Mars Express senior manager, told SPACE.com.

They have examples of the images. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be an online, searchable viewer for these, or at least none I can find. Maybe someone will stitch one together in the future.