Archive May 2010
Afternoon at Chryse Planitia
View of the Viking 1 Lander site in Chryse Planitia.
High-resolution view of the Martian surface at Chryse Planitia, produced from nine Viking 1 Lander mid-afternoon images (12a119.bb3, 12a136.bb1, 12a140.bb2, 12a152.bb2, 12a153.bb4, 12a211.bb4, 12a212.bb4, 12a237.bb4 and 12a238.bb2). The images were taken between August 10 and August 20, 1976.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Mosaic by astroarts.org
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Olympus Mons caldera
Viking Orbiter image mosaic
of the Olympus Mons caldera.
This mosaic of 22 Viking 1 Orbiter images (f473s13/17/19/21/23/25/27/29, f474s17/19, and f474s21 to 32), taken on July 11 and July 12, 1980, shows the complex caldera at the summit of Olympus Mons. South is at the top.
The caldera, a composite of as many as seven roughly circular collapse depressions, is 66 by 83 km across. The lowest parts of the floor are over 4 kilometers below the rim of the caldera.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University/Mosaic by astroarts.org
Note: This is the most complete high-resolution Viking Orbiter image mosaic of the Olympus Mons caldera which has been published to date.
For comparison, here is a mosaic of the Olympus Mons caldera produced by A. Tayfun Öner in 1997 and published on Calvin J. Hamilton’s website “Views of the Solar System”, and here is a mosaic produced by JPL and published in NASA’s Planetary Photojournal.