Astronomers Release ‘Christmas’ Photo From Mars

Merry Christmas From Mars!

Mars has certainly been the focus of more than a little attention over the last few months. With the InSight NASA probe successfully landing on the surface, it has already been sending back some pretty amazing images to Earth. It seems, however, that Mars has a little Christmas card for us as a whole.

In a report via SkyNews, astronomers have released a photograph showing an amazing image of a ‘wintery’ Korolev crater.

Not An Easy Task

The Korolev crater on Mars is roughly 72 kilometres (50ish miles) wide and is filled with ice believed to be around 2km deep. The image, taken by the Mars Express mission satellite, however, did not have a particularly easy task of taking the image.

The picture below is actually comprised of 5 separate ‘strip’ images that were taken. To achieve the full picture, the satellite has to take an image each time it orbited the site. In other words, the picture below is comprised of 5 trips around Mars.

What Do We Think?

As amazing as this image it, it does seem to mark just the beginning of us learning a lot more. We do, after all, still know so little about our neighbouring planet. Just think, as I’m writing this we have several rovers on the surface. In addition, there’s also more than a few things flying around it. It might still be a long time before we set foot on the Red Planet, but with pictures like this, it somehow feels a little bit nearer.

What do you think? Are you impressed with the picture? – Let us know in the comments!