ESA releases Mars Express images of water shaped Schiaparelli Crater
ESA has dropped some stunning images of the massive Schiaparelli Crater on Mars, thanks to its Mars Express spacecraft.
The photos, taken during a close flyby, show a landscape shaped by ancient water about 3.7 billion years ago.
Schiaparelli Crater aids regional mapping
Schiaparelli Crater stretches a whopping 460km and is packed with history: from water and volcanic activity to asteroid impacts.
It's even famous in pop culture as the spot where Mark Watney got stranded in The Martian.
The crater is named after Giovanni Schiaparelli, who made detailed observations of Mars during the planet's closest approach in 1877 and created a map of "canali."
These new images help scientists piece together more complete regional maps and add to scientists' increasingly complex model of the entire Martian globe.