New Collection of Flythough Videos From HiRISE

By Nancy Atkinson - April 07, 2009 06:58 PM UTC | Planetary Science

Yowza! There's a

new collection of Mars flythrough video clips

from the folks over at the

HiRISE website

, and they are fabulous! Most of the files are pretty hefty (between 5 and 33 MB) but the download time is worth it. I think my favorite one is of Candor Chasma, which is a large canyon in the Valles Marineris system. The contrast between ragged hills and layered valleys is amazing. All the videos are created from images from the high-resolution HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has the highest resolution of any other camera on a Mars orbiter. This translates into extraordinary detail for all kinds of surface features -- meaning these videos are incredible. Choose from Candor Chasma, the Columbia Hills, Nili Fossae, Mawrth Vallis and more. There's also scroll videos of weekly image highlights, which are also available for iPhones.

The HiRISE site also has another new feature...

They are called Hi Flyers, which are mini-posters with images and info about features on Mars All HiFlyers are PDF documents and are 11 x 17 inches.
New "flyers" are available each week with the latest images from HiRISE.

Also, if you enjoy 3-D imagery, you might want to take a look at

Nathanial Burton-Bradford's Flickr

page where he has created some great 3-d shots with frames taken from the HiRISE videos. So, grab your 3-D glass and take a look -- the Candor Chasma image is oustanding!

Enjoy!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com