christmas card from mars: astronomers snap images of giant 82km-wide ice-filled crater - high resolution document camera

European Space Agency (ESA)
Mars Express satellite sent back spectacular images of Christmas cards from the red planet.
The caldera is 82 km kilometers. wide (50 mile)
A crater near the Earth's Arctic.
It is estimated that there are 2,200 cubic kilometers of water ice here, which is frozen as high as 2 km (1. 2 miles)deep.
The Mars Express was launched by ESA on 2003.
It entered orbit around Mars on Christmas Day that year, making this month 15-
The first anniversary of the scientific programme.
According to ESA, the beautiful Christmas card images and the other two are "an excellent celebration of such a milestone ".
They were taken by the high-resolution stereo camera of the Mars Express (HRSC)
Their view of the Korolev crater is made up of five different "strips" that are combined into a single image.
Each zone is clustered on different tracks and the images cover the view angle, background and terrain views, all of which ESA says provide a more complete view of the interior and surrounding terrain of the crater.
The crater was named after the father of Soviet space technology, chief rocket engineer and spacecraft designer Sergei kororev.
Mr. kololev works in some oil wells.
Known missions including satellite plans
In 1957, the first man-made satellite entered orbit around the Earth.
A few weeks ago, NASA's InSight rover sent back a selfie on the surface of Mars.
The spacecraft used a camera fixed on the robot's arm to take photos of the Red Planet.
Insight rover in the foreground can clearly see the rocky surface of Mars.
It has landed after seven months, more than 0. 3 billion miles, costing billions of dollars.