Welcome to the Mars Art Gallery

The purpose of the Mars Art Gallery is to both highlight the natural beauty of the planet Mars and to illustrate how the raw data can be manipulated to create entirely new works of art. All of the images of Mars that are displayed on this site were created from data returned by either the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Pathfinder, Mariner 9, Mars Odyssey, or Viking missions to Mars.

All of the images shown here have been digitally enhanced and manipulated in some way. While some images have only been slightly modified, others have been heavily distorted and processed in order to create an image that is artistic in nature.

Why Mars as Art?

You may be wondering why I have decided to create a web site that is devoted to the use of imaging data from several planetary missions as a basis for the creation of artistic renditions of Mars, both realistic and abstract. While I have had a life-long interest in Mars and have lectured on the subject for almost 20 years, it wasn't until the Mars Global Surveyor mission that I began to think of this geological imagery as art. That is because prior to Mars Global Surveyor, the image scale and resolution of the data was insufficient to reveal the beauty of the aeolian and seasonal features of Mars.

In fact most of the images in the Crater Gallery, Moon Gallery, Orbital Gallery, and Surface Gallery were originally created to serve as illustrations for my Mars related presentations.If you are in the greater Chicago area and would like more information about these presentations, check out Presentations About Mars.

Web Site Organization

It took some thought to arrive at an organization or structure that would be both intuitive and require minimal searching for content. The chief difficulty was in determining how to organize the galleries. I came up with several alternative structures before deciding on this organization.

The About section is an index to pages that describe this web site and its artist creator - webmaster.

The Articles section is an index to the articles published here, many of which are relevant to the Mars images on display here.

The Art Shop identifies prints and other items that are for sale.

The Abstract Gallery contains thumbnail images of all abstract art that was created using actual Mars mission image data as the starting point for experimentation and exploration.

The Orbital Gallery contains thumbnail images of all the pictures of Mars on display here that were taken from an orbiter mission to Mars. Two examples would be the Mars Global Surveyor and Viking orbiter missions.

The Crater Gallery contains thumbnail images of all the pictures of Mars on display here that have a crater as the primary subject.

The Moon Gallery contains thumbnail images of all the pictures of the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos on display here.

The Surface Gallery contains thumbnail images of all the pictures of Mars on display here that were taken from the surface by landers. Examples would be Mars Pathfinder and the Mars Exploration Rovers.

The Resources section consists of links to web sites that would be of interest to those looking for additional sources of information about Mars and an index to useful reference materials.

The News section is an index to all news items that relate to the Mars Art Gallery. This section also contains instructions on how to subscribe to "Mars Art Gallery News Alerts".

The Contact page contains information on how to contact the "Mars Art Gallery" artist - author - webmaster.

Closing Thoughts

I hope that you find the art on display here entertaining and thought provoking and the associated information useful. If you are in the Chicago area and are responsible for arranging programming or presentations for an institution or other organization, please visit either my Presentations About Mars or NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador pages to find out how to arrange for me to make a presentation to your organization.

Ad Astra per Ardua