Approaching Flaugergues Crater (bird’s-eye view)

This view is taken from a Mars Express flyover video of Flaugergues Crater on Mars.

This image shows the beginning of the video, which begins by tracking along a swathe of ground enclosed by two steeply sloping and roughly parallel cliffs – or escarpments – named Scylla Scopulus and Charybdis Scopulus (to the left and right, respectively). A large crater named Bakhuysen Crater can be seen to the left. Flaugergues Crater itself can just about be seen to the keen eye, shrouded by haze in the distance.

View the video

Processing notes

The video uses data from the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera Mars Chart (HMC20W), an image mosaic made from single orbit observations of the mission’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The mosaic image, centred at 20°S/17°E, was combined with topography information from the digital terrain model to generate the three-dimensional landscape seen here.

For every second of the video, 50 separate frames are rendered following a pre-defined camera path in the scene. The vertical exaggeration used for the animation is three-fold. Atmospheric effects, like clouds and haze, have been added to conceal the limits of the terrain model. The haze starts building up at a distance of 250 km.

[Image description: A sweeping view of the Martian surface under soft, hazy light. The terrain is entirely reddish‑brown and heavily cratered. To the middle-left of the scene lies a very large, ancient impact crater with steep, jagged walls and a relatively smooth floor. Its rim forms an uneven ring of raised cliffs and slopes. Surrounding this main crater is a broad landscape scattered with countless smaller craters of different sizes. Some are shallow and eroded, while others have sharp rims that cast long shadows. Ridges and low hills run diagonally across the scene, giving the surface a rugged, weathered appearance. In the distance, the landscape fades into a pale, dusty horizon, where the details soften and blend into a pinkish atmospheric haze. The overall impression is of an expansive, ancient, and deeply scarred Martian plain.]