This story is part of Welcome to Mars, our series exploring the red planet. The image's pixel count eclipses a previous 1.8 billion-pixel panorama of the Gale Crater from the Curiosity rover in 2020.

Called Mars Ice Mapper, it's an orbiting spacecraft packing a powerful radar that will be used specifically for ice detection, based on the findings NASA already has on its map.

Since it arrived at Mars in 2006, the MRO has been snapping pictures of nearly all of the Red Planet, making its images an optimal starting point for scientists when they’re creating a map.

The map is so detailed that it covers some 270 square feet (25 square meters) of the Martian surface in each pixel. Put another way: If the map were to be printed out, the 5.7 trillion–pixel (5. ...

Scientists used the data to make a detailed topographic map. For views in visible light, the Hubble Space Telescope, in orbit around Earth, can see one entire side of Mars.

Yet, many scientists suspect that much of Mars’ ancient water didn't vanish entirely. Instead, it seeped below the surface, stored in hidden aquifers deep within the planet’s crust ...

The next Mars rover now has a detailed map with which to help find its way around the red planet. Comments (1) When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

A newly-deployed satellite has created the most-detailed map yet of the ocean floor, ... Scientists find hint of hidden liquid water ocean deep below Mars' surface; With a 5-mile ...

Turning the tool on Mars would perhaps fill in the missing pieces of a puzzle Schiaparelli left the world more than a century ago. Paul Hoversten is the executive editor of Air & Space . You Might ...

The most detailed images of Mars' moon Deimos have been unveiled after a probe flew just 100km (62 miles) from its surface. The "unprecedented" high-resolution pictures, captured by the UAE Space ...

This subsurface water layer potentially holds between 520 to 780 meters of global equivalent layer (GEL). GEL measures the depth if all the water was evenly spread across Mars’ surface.