You can visit Mars without all the pesky space travel, lack of breathable atmosphere and desolate dust storms. Just pop on into this gorgeous 4K video for a deep-dive tour of a network of ridges in Tempe Terra, a highlands region known for its craters.
The video, released on Thursday, comes courtesy of the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRise camera team at the University of Arizona. The visual wizards there are constantly delivering stunning Martian views from the visiting spacecraft.
The high-res video is set to a soundtrack of a song titled Dreamscape by a musician working under the name Density & Time. It involves a slow pan over a set of wild-looking formations imaged by MRO in late 2020.
“The ridges are very regular in height and width. These ridges also seem to be associated with a certain layer,” the HiRise team wrote. “The layer above the ridges has a darker-tone and many of the ridges are joined to others, some at close to right angles.”
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The ridges are something, but be sure to hang in for the end of the video when a shadowed crater appears in the corner looking like it could swallow your soul.
We’re living in a time of great abundance when it comes to images of Mars. From rover’s-eye views to scenes spotted by spacecraft, this is truly a golden age for reveling in the stark beauty of the red planet.
Red planets have ridges.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
