The European Space Agency has released a new video showing the Mars Express spacecraft flying around the Schiaparelli crater on Mars. The crater lies in the southern hemisphere of the planet and measures roughly 460 kilometers across.
Despite its large size, the basin appears comparatively shallow. Researchers suggest that over billions of years it may have been filled with sediments transported by wind, deposited by water, or laid down by lava – possibly a combination of all three processes.
The crater is named after the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who made detailed observations of Mars during the great opposition of 1877. He interpreted dark lines on the surface as natural water channels and called them “canali” in Italian. Later, the English translation led to the misunderstanding that they were artificial canals, fueling speculation about intelligent Martian inhabitants.
Today we know these lines were optical illusions caused by the limited resolution of telescopes at the time. Nevertheless, there is evidence that water once existed in the region of Schiaparelli crater, perhaps as a lake. The crater also gained popularity as the final destination of astronaut Mark Watney in Andy Weir’s novel “The Martian”.
The video was created using data from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) aboard Mars Express. The images were mosaicked and combined with a digital terrain model to provide topography. For each second of film, 50 frames are rendered following a predefined camera path, with a three‑fold vertical exaggeration to accentuate relief. Atmospheric effects such as haze were added to conceal the limits of the terrain model; the haze begins at a distance of about 250 kilometers.
The HRSC camera is operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Systematic data processing took place at the DLR Institute for Space Research in Berlin‑Adlershof. The Planetary Science and Remote Sensing working group at Freie Universität Berlin used the data to produce the film.