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 scifi 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.
