PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA21555: The Entrance to Mawrth Vallis
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter covers the entrance to Mawrth Vallis.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) 
 Spacecraft:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
 Instrument:  HiRISE 
 Product Size:  2880 x 1800 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  University of Arizona/HiRISE-LPL 
 Other  
Information: 		 Other products from ESP_049017_2060 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA21555.tif (15.56 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA21555.jpg (597.1 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Click here for larger version of PIA21555
Map Projected Browse Image
Click on the image for larger version

In Andy Weir's "The Martian," stranded astronaut Mark Watney drives from the Ares 3 landing site in Acidalia Planitia towards the Ares 4 landing site in Schiaparelli Crater via Mawrth Vallis. This image covers the entrance to Mawrth Vallis. (Have a look at the scene in 3D.)

As you can tell, driving over this terrain will be much more difficult than it was depicted in the novel or the movie.

The map is projected here at a scale of 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) per pixel. [The original image scale is 58.5 centimeters (19.1 inches) per pixel (with 2 x 2 binning); objects on the order of 176 centimeters (69.2 inches) across are resolved.] North is up.

This is a stereo pair with ESP_048595_2060.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Image Addition Date:
2017-03-07