Planetary Society logo
  • “Exploration is in our nature.” - Carl Sagan

The HiRISE focal plane projected onto Heimdall Crater

The HiRISE focal plane projected onto Heimdall Crater
The HiRISE focal plane projected onto Heimdall Crater As Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter slewed to make Phoenix travel perpendicular to the HiRISE detectors, the surface of Mars drifted at an angle through the HiRISE field of view. The combination of the angular drift and the staggered positions of HiRISE's 14 detectors resulted in gaps in the final image.
Key: Black rectangles show approximate locations of HiRISE chip assembly active areas overlaid onto a photo of the central group of six chips. Purple lines show where the angle of the ground image travel across the focal plane causes a gap in the overlap for the red (monochromatic) channel. Red lines show where the angle of the ground image travel across the focal plane causes a larger than normal overlap for the red channel. Green lines indicate the boundaries within which color data is available, where portions of image swaths reach all three color channels.