ExoMars landing sites in context

The two candidates for the landing site of the ESA-Roscosmos rover and surface science platform that will launch to the Red Planet in 2020. Both landing site candidates – Oxia Planum and Mawrth Vallis – preserve a rich record of geological history from the planet’s wetter past billions of years ago. They lie just north of the equator, separated by a few hundred kilometres, in a region with many channels cutting through from the southern highlands to the northern lowlands.

The background used in this image is from NASA’s Viking orbiters.