This picture shows where Isidis Planitia is on Mars. The Mars globe on the left shows how Mars would look to your eyes if you were close to Mars. The globe on the right shows how high (or low) places on Mars are. Places that are high look red or orange on the right globe. Places that are low look green or blue on the right globe. You can see that Isidis Planitia is low because it is blue.
Click on image for full size
NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems and the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Isidis Planitia
Isidis Planitia is a flat plain inside a very old crater on Mars.
Isidis Planitia is about 1500 km (930 miles) across. It is just north
of the
equator on Mars on the eastern side
of the Red Planet.
The crater was probably created about three or four billion years
ago when a comet or a big asteroid slammed
into Mars. The northern
part of Mars is very low and flat. The southern
part of Mars is much higher and has lots of hills. Isidis Planitia
is right along the edge of the southern hills. It is connected to the
flat plains in the north.
Some scientists think that Mars had oceans a long time ago. If it did,
those oceans probably covered the northern plains. Isidis Planitia might
have been a bay along the edge of the northern seas.
A spacecraft called Mars
Express went into orbit around Mars in December
2003. Mars Express had a lander called Beagle
2 that landed on Mars in
the eastern
part of Isidis Planitia. Beagle 2 is supposed to look for
life on Mars. Scientists think that places that once had water are
good places to look for life.
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