Ares 3 Landing Site: The Martian Revisited
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
Ares 3 Landing Site: The Martian Revisited
ESP_040776_2115  Science Theme: Future Exploration/Landing Sites
We previously released an image near the Ares 3 landing site from “The Martian” by Andy Weir. Andy then sent us the exact coordinates, which we targeted, and this is it.

The closeup shows some wind-blown deposits inside eroded craters. We can’t see the Ares 3 habitat because it arrives sometime in the future, so this is the “before” image. The dark areas appear bluish in HiRISE color but would appear grey to humans on the surface, or maybe a bit reddish when the air is dusty.

Ares 3’s 6-meter-diameter habitat would be just 20 pixels across at this scale, about 1/10th the diameter of the largest crater in the central cluster. If protagonist Mark Watney were laying flat on the surface, he would be 6 pixels tall.



Written by: Alfred McEwen and Andy Weir  (16 April 2015)

This is a stereo pair with ESP_041277_2115.
 
Acquisition date
08 April 2015

Local Mars time
14:10

Latitude (centered)
31.380°

Longitude (East)
331.371°

Spacecraft altitude
293.6 km (182.5 miles)

Original image scale range
29.4 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~88 cm across are resolved

Map projected scale
25 cm/pixel and North is up

Map projection
Equirectangular

Emission angle
2.4°

Phase angle
54.5°

Solar incidence angle
56°, with the Sun about 34° above the horizon

Solar longitude
322.5°, Northern Winter

For non-map projected images
North azimuth:  97°
Sub-solar azimuth:  314.5°
JPEG
Black and white
map projected  non-map

IRB color
map projected  non-map

Merged IRB
map projected

Merged RGB
map projected

RGB color
non-map projected

JP2
Black and white
map-projected   (1118MB)

IRB color
map-projected   (621MB)

JP2 EXTRAS
Black and white
map-projected  (506MB)
non-map           (575MB)

IRB color
map projected  (214MB)
non-map           (488MB)

Merged IRB
map projected  (309MB)

Merged RGB
map-projected  (297MB)

RGB color
non map           (491MB)
ANAGLYPHS
Map-projected, reduced-resolution
Full resolution JP2 download
Anaglyph details page

DIGITAL TERRAIN MODEL (DTM)
DTM details page

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
B&W label
Color label
Merged IRB label
Merged RGB label
EDR products
HiView

NB
IRB: infrared-red-blue
RGB: red-green-blue
About color products (PDF)

Black & white is 5 km across; enhanced color about 1 km
For scale, use JPEG/JP2 black & white map-projected images

USAGE POLICY
All of the images produced by HiRISE and accessible on this site are within the public domain: there are no restrictions on their usage by anyone in the public, including news or science organizations. We do ask for a credit line where possible:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

POSTSCRIPT
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.