The westerly hemisphere of Mars , with the vent Olympus Mons on the visible horizon . photograph courtesyKevin Gill .
In September , NASAannouncedthat the Curiosity rover find remnant of an ancient stream bed on Mars — grounds that our violent neighbor was , at one level , a blue major planet spread over in body of water . Now , Kevin Gill , a computer software engineer , has given us a vision of what a watery Mars might have looked like .
accord to Smithsonian ’s Smart News web log , Gill used elevation mensuration based on the observation of NASA ’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to create his vision . But he also took artistic liberties with his creation by overdo the topographical feature or so 10 times , pick out the acme of the atmosphere and its clouds , shape a coherent sea level , and picking what areas would be covered by wood and desert . " I tried to envision how the land would come out given sealed feature article or the gist of potential atmospheric clime , " the engine driver writes on hisGoogle+ page . " For exercise , I did n’t see much unripe taking hold within the arena of Olympus Mons and the surrounding volcanoes , both due to the volcanic natural process and the proximity to the equator ( thus a more tropical climate ) . "
To create the deserts , Gill used textures from the Sahara and the backbone in Australia , and based the tropical and subtropical greens on the rainforests in South America and Africa . " As the terrain perplex higher or lower in latitude I added darker plant life along with tundra and glacial ice , " he writes . " These northerly and southern areas textures are largely take from around northerly Russia . "
Gill hop that his drab marble version of Mars will activate the imagination , even if it is n’t a wholly scientific vision .
