ESA’s Mars Express takes us on a dizzying flight around a butterfly crater on Mars.

A butterfly crater is created when a space rock collides with the martian surface at a low angle, causing two separate lobes (or wings) of material to be flung outwards. Such collisions result in a characteristic butterfly-like shape, with an elongated central crater lying between two outstretched ‘wings’ of material.

This crater measures roughly 20 km from east to west and 15 km from north to south. It lies in the Idaeus Fossae region of Mars, in the planet’s northern lowlands.

More information and images

Processing notes:

The video is based on views generated using the digital terrain model and the nadir and colour channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express.

The HRSC camera on Mars Express is operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The systematic processing of the camera data took place at the DLR Institute for Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof. The working group of Planetary Science and Remote Sensing at Freie Universität Berlin used the data to create the film.