Buzz
The western hemisphere of Mars, with the towering Olympus Mons volcano on the horizon. Image courtesy of Kevin Gill.
In September, NASA announced that the Curiosity rover uncovered traces of an ancient stream bed on Mars—proof that the Red Planet was once a watery world. Kevin Gill, a software engineer, has now provided us with a conceptual view of what a water-covered Mars might have looked like.
As per Smithsonian's Smart News blog, Gill relied on elevation data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to build his vision. However, he also took some creative liberties, exaggerating the planet's topography by a factor of 10. He made decisions about the atmosphere's height and cloud coverage, selected a consistent sea level, and chose which areas would be covered in forests or deserts. "I tried to imagine how the land would look based on various features and the likely effects of atmospheric conditions," the engineer shares on his Google+ page. "For instance, I didn't envision much greenery taking hold around Olympus Mons and the nearby volcanoes, largely due to volcanic activity and the proximity to the equator, which would create a tropical climate."
To craft the desert landscapes, Gill used textures from the Sahara and Australian sands, while the tropical and subtropical greens were inspired by the rainforests of South America and Africa. "As the terrain shifts to higher or lower latitudes, I added darker vegetation along with tundra and glacial ice," he explains. "The textures in these northern and southern regions are mostly derived from areas around northern Russia."
Image provided byGill hopes that his artistic rendition of a blue Mars will spark the imagination, even if it doesn't fully align with scientific accuracy.
