In Andy Weir's "The Martian," stranded astronaut Mark Watney drives from the Ares 3 landing site in Acidalia Planitia towards the Ares 4 landing site in Schiaparelli Crater via Mawrth Vallis. This image covers the entrance to Mawrth Vallis. (<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/EXTRAS/ANAGLYPH/ESP/ORB_049000_049099/ESP_049017_2060_ESP_048595_2060/ESP_049017_2060_ESP_048595_2060_RED.browse.png">Have a look at the scene in 3D.</a>)
<p>As you can tell, driving over this terrain will be much more difficult than it was depicted in the novel or the movie.
</p><p>The map is projected here at a scale of 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) per pixel. [The original image scale is 58.5 centimeters (19.1 inches) per pixel (with 2 x 2 binning); objects on the order of 176 centimeters (69.2 inches) across are resolved.] North is up.
</p><p>This is a stereo pair with <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_048595_2060">ESP_048595_2060</a>.
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The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace &amp; Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
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