By Dean Murray
A spaceship appears to fly over the location where an astronaut was stranded in sci-fi film “The Martian” in new science data released this week.
A video from the ESA’s Mars Express shows detailed views of the 460-kilometer-wide Schiaparelli Crater.
The site featured in the 2015 feature film, based on Andy Weir’s novel, in which Matt Damon’s astronaut Mark Watney travels there to be rescued.
ESA said the video was created using Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera Mars Chart data and image mosaics made from multiple observations by the mission’s High Resolution Stereo Camera).
The mosaic image has been combined with topography information from the digital terrain model to generate a three-dimensional landscape.
The crater is in the area in the white square on the Red Planet. (ESA / DLR / FUBerlin / NASA JPLCal / MSSS via SWNS)
Combining all data points allows researchers to study the topography of the Red Planet to see how features were formed and identify potential landing sites for future missions.
ESA said: “Despite measuring a huge 460 km across, Schiaparelli Crater seems to be relatively shallow. Perhaps it has been filled in over the last few billion years by sediment blown by the wind or deposited by water, by lava – or by a combination of all three.”
Schiaparelli Crater is named after Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910). Although he studied Mercury and Venus, he is best known for his observations of the Red Planet.
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