A gallery of the best images captured by the Mars Express Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) during testing and optimisation in 2007. The selection includes a crescent Mars, Mars' rotation and views of the Red Planet's 'volcano family' (we've also included a few images taken by the VMC in 2003).
This image from 2007, DoY 288 (15 Oct), was the first VMC image of the largest volcano in the solar system – Olympus Mons. It is the large shadow in the overexposed region to the left of the disc. Olympus Mons is a volcano of unreal proportions – covering an area the size of Germany, it is 27 km from top to bottom (3 times Mount Everest) and is ringed by cliffs 6 km high. The volcano is in fact so large that if you stood on the surface of the planet you would not be able to see the whole volcano as the planet would curve away. When this image was taken, the spacecraft was over the North Pole (it is in shadow at the top of the image).
