A radiating beauty on Mars

5 September 2013 - Exceptional structures deposited and shaped by water and winds adorn these interlocking craters and sculpt radiating patterns in the sands of Mars. This mosaic, which focuses on Becquerel crater in Arabia Terra, is composed of four images taken by the high-resolution stereo camera on ESA's Mars Express. Arabia Terra is in the transition zone between the southern highlands and the northern lowlands of Mars. Becquerel crater is named for the 19th-century French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852-1908), winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 along with Marie and Pierre Curie for the discovery of radioactivity. It is the largest crater in this scene, with a diameter of 167 km, and drops to a depth of about 3.5 km below the surrounding terrain. A second large crater lies within Becquerel, punching even deeper into the surface, as seen in the Mars Express topography and 3D images. The perspective view below reveals an intriguing, large mound within Becquerel's crater walls, reminiscent of Mount Sharp in Gale crater, currently being explored by NASA's Curiosity rover.