The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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This image shows the locations of the buried basins detected by the MARSIS sounding radar on board ESA’s Mars Express in July 2005. Locations and inferred diameters from MARSIS echoes are shown in black on a MOLA colour-coded shaded relief.
The locations and diameters of quasi-circular topographic depressions with diameters larger than 200 kilometres are plotted in white. White polygons show the area covered by MARSIS orbits. Where there is left/right ambiguity in the location of a MARSIS basin that coincides with a quasi-circular topographic depression, the plotted location reflects the minimum offset between the centres of the MARSIS basin and the quasi-circular topographic depressions themselves.