The European Space Agency showed an incredibly detailed panorama of Mars (photo)

20 years ago, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Mars Express spacecraft, and now it is celebrating the anniversary of this event by publishing a breathtaking panorama of Mars.

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The photos, which were published on Space.com, were taken by the Mars Express probe, which entered orbit of the Red Planet in 2003. The images were captured using a high-resolution stereo camera located on the probe from an altitude of approximately 300 kilometers. The panorama consists of 90 images taken from different altitudes, from 4000 to 50,000 kilometers.

In this fascinating panorama, you can see many different colors, each of which conveys certain information about the composition of the surface of Mars. The dark and even blue areas are the result of volcanic activity, when gray-black basalt sand settles to the planet's surface to form broad dark layers. These dark sands accumulate and form large sand dunes and dune fields, and fill craters that are formed when asteroids collide.

The photo also shows lighter and even white areas on the surface of Mars, which are the result of rock erosion by water in ancient times when the planet was wetter.

Finally, the scientists note that the sulfate minerals found in Mars' canyon system, known as Valles Marineris, which stretches over 4000 kilometers east of the Farsida region.

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