Water Amidst Craters
Image Title:
Water Amidst Craters
Release Date: October 14, 2005
Source: Viking Orbiter
Description
Remove the color from this image and you might think that you were looking at the Moon. Except there is one feature that doesn't fit - the sinuous valley or riverbed that runs through the image. It was features like this that presented planetary scientists with a puzzle. How could a planet as cold as Mars and with so little atmosphere have features that look like they were created by flowing water? The question of water on Mars has served as fuel for many scientific debates. One consequence of our attempts to understand Mars' past has been numerous new insights into how planets evolve and operate.
Water Amidst Craters Source Image Background
The image shown is a composite of two images taken by the Viking Orbiter 1 in May 1980. The target area lies in the Hellas quadrangle of Mars at -37.3° latitude, 250.3° longitude. The valley shown is the eastern end of Reull Vallis.
Water Amidst Craters Image Processing
All work on this image was performed in Adobe Photoshop. This false color image is a composite of two Viking Orbiter images. The Viking images were taken using the clear filter and so contain no color information. The colors used to create this image were selected at the artist's discretion. The Viking source images were taken as part of a medium resolution stereo sequence of images.
Water Amidst Craters Wallpaper Download
I have made a wallpaper version of this image available. This wallpaper image is made available for your personal use only. It is not to be modified or redistributed in any form by any means. All rights are retained by the artist.
