Imagery From India’s Mars Orbiter Mission

Composite images of Mars collected by ISRO’s orbiter give a clear view of the planet’s complexity. The northern polar ice cap is surrounded by dark, flat plains believed to be the floor of an ancient ocean.

Traveling 2,453 km (1,500 mi.) above the surface, MOM returned this view of the Danielson crater and its smaller neighbor Kalocsa on Sept. 24. Also studied by Europe’s Mars Express orbiter, Danielson contains sediment layers within its 60-km diameter, while Kalosca—measuring 33 km wide—does not. The resolution delivered by the Mars Color Camera here is 122 m (400 ft.).

Valles Marineris, an equatorial feature that is more than 3,000 km long and 600 km wide, may have started as a tectonic crack in the planet’s crust. On Earth, it would dwarf the Grand Canyon in the U.S. and give the rift valleys scattered around Earth’s surface and ocean floors some competition for extent. The MOM view is reminiscent of mosaics collected by the Viking missions.

Two MOM views of Olympus Mons, a shield volcano comparable to those that produced the Hawaiian Islands. The closeup processed for 3-D perspective gives an idea of the height of the feature, believed to be the tallest mountain in the Solar System at about 85,000 ft. above the surrounding terrain.

MOM returned this shot of Gale Crater, where the nuclear-powered Curiosity rover is slowly making its way up the central peak. The Indian spacecraft gives planetary scientists another data source for the robotic exploration of Mars.

The Mars Color Camera collected this image of the Thymiamata desert, one of the planet’s brightest regions, on Aug. 13, 2015. ISRO has announced plans to build a MOM-2 follow-on by 2020, possibly in partnership with French space agency CNES. This enhanced image was collected at an altitude of 4,490 km and has a resolution of 225 m.