Ares 3 Landing Site: The Martian Revisited
Explanation:
This close-up from
the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's
HiRISE camera shows weathered craters and windblown deposits in southern
Acidalia Planitia.
A striking shade of blue in standard HiRISE image colors,
to the human eye the area would probably look grey or a little reddish.
But human eyes have not gazed
across this terrain, unless you count the eyes of NASA astronauts
in the sci-fi novel,
"
The
Martian,"
by Andy Weir.
The novel chronicles the adventures of Mark Watney,
an astronaut stranded at the fictional Mars mission Ares 3 landing site,
corresponding to the coordinates of this cropped HiRISE frame.
For scale, Watney's 6-meter-diameter habitat at the site would be
about 1/10th the diameter of the large crater.
Of course,
the Ares 3 landing coordinates are only about 800 kilometers north of
the (real life) Carl
Sagan Memorial Station,
the 1997
Pathfinder landing site.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
