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Mars Express Captures Happy-Face Crater
Paris, France (SPX) Apr 11, 2006 Mars Express captured this image showing the Galle Crater, a feature 230 kilometers (143 miles) wide located on the eastern rim of the red planet's Argyre Planitia impact basin. Crater Galle lies to the east of Argyre Planitia and southwest of the Wirtz and Helmholtz craters, at 51 degrees South latitude and 329 degrees East longitude. The image shows a large stack of layered sediments forming an outcrop in the southern part of the crater. Several parallel gullies - possible evidence for liquid water on the Martian surface - originate at the inner crater walls of the southern rim. Crater Galle, named after the German astronomer J.G. Galle (1812-1910), is known informally known as the 'happy face' crater. The face was first noticed in images taken during NASA's Viking Orbiter 1 mission in the late 1970s. The crater's interior shows a surface shaped by Aeolian, or wind-caused, activity manifested in numerous dunes and dark dust-devil tracks which removed the bright dusty surface coating. Ground technicians compiled the single image from five separate passes using the spacecraft's High Resolution Stereo Camera. Each pass produced an image strip covering an area tens of kilometers wide. They also derived the color from three separate HRSC image-data channels during the overlapping passes. The image's ground resolution ranges from 10 meters to 20 meters (32.5 feet and 65 feet) per pixel, depending on the image strip � although technicians reduced the resolution to 50 meters (162.5 feet) for use on the Internet. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Mars Express ESA Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com Lunar Dreams and more
Spirit Seeks Alternate Wintering Location
Pasadena CA (SPX) Apr 10, 2006NASA's Spirit rover has run into more trouble: On the way to the north-facing slopes on the peak called McCool in the Columbia Hills - and between outcrops called Oberth and Korolev, Spirit encountered an impassable, sandy area, which threatened to bog down the hobbled craft before it could reach a more sunny location from which to ride out the approaching Martian winter. |
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