If you’ve ever wanted to get lost on Mars, now’s your chance: You can fly over a maze-like canyon on the Red Planet in a stunning new video from the European Space Agency (ESA).
The animation, based on data from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, brings viewers on a “mesmerising flight over curving channels carved by water, islands that have resisted erosion, and a maze of hilly terrain,” using images from the spacecraft’s high-resolution stereo camera, ESA officials said in a statement.
“Central to the tour is a 1300 km [808-mile]-long outflow channel called Shalbatana Vallis,” they explained. “It cascades down from the highland region of Xanthe Terra to the smoother lowlands of Chryse Planitia. Billions of years ago, water surged through this channel, creating many of the features we see today. The tour culminates in a spectacular view of a 100 km [62-mile]-wide impact crater, smashed out of Mars’s surface when it collided with a space rock.”
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