20 years HRSC on Mars Express • Images
Image 1
Simulated view of the HRSC colour mosaic from 2500 km above Valles Marineris, with locally enhanced colour: Composite of red, green, and blue filter mosaics, with the colour band values stretched individually.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/G. Michael
Image 2
Simulated view of the HRSC colour mosaic from 2500 km above Valles Marineris, natural colour: Composite of red, green, and blue filter mosaics, with the colour band values in their original proportion to one another. This is closer to what you might see, if you were flying over the surface of Mars.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/G. Michael
Image 3
Example of a single HRSC high-altitude image (HRSC orbit number 21,688_0000; Background MOLA shaded relief). Left: Red-green-blue-composite showing how the surface looks like in visible light. Note the light-blue colours of the northern and southern limb owing to a shallower view of the camera through the Martian atmosphere resulting in a stronger atmospheric influence of the images. Such image parts were excluded from the global mosaic. Right: Infrared-red-green-composite. Such unusual views including the infrared channel are one possible way to examine the relationship of the surface reflectivity in the infrared to that of other colours and have also been inspected to detect artefacts or holes in the input data.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MOLA Science Team
Image 4
Closeup of the HRSC colour mosaic showing the canyon system Valles Marineris and annotated surface details: Sulphate deposits, haze/fog as well as thin cloud veneers. This tectonic graben stretches more than 4000 kilometers east-west and up to 700 kilometers north-south.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/G. Michael