Christmas card from Mars: Astronomers snap images of giant 82km-wide ice-filled crater

The Korolev crater is an 82km-wide (50 mile) impact crater near the planet's north pole which holds 2,200 cubic kilometres of ice.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express satellite has sent home spectacular Christmas card images from the Red Planet.

The Korolev crater is an 82km-wide (50 mile) impact crater near the planet's north pole.

It contains an estimated 2,200 cubic kilometres of water ice, frozen up to an estimated 2km (1.2 miles) deep.

ESA's Mars Express mission launched back in 2003. It went into orbit around Mars on Christmas Day of that year, making this month the 15-year anniversary of the beginning of its science programme.

The beautiful Christmas card image and two others are "an excellent celebration of such a milestone", according to ESA.

They were taken by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) and the view they offer of the Korolev crater is composed of five different "strips" which have been combined to form a single image.

Each strip was gathered over a different orbit, and the images cover perspective, context, and topographic views, all of which ESA says offer a more complete view of the terrain in and around the crater.

The crater is named after Sergei Korolev, the chief rocket engineer and spacecraft designer, known as the father of Soviet space technology.

Mr Korolev worked on a number of well-known missions including the Sputnik programme - the first artificial satellites sent into orbit around the Earth in 1957.

The pictures come just weeks after NASA's InSight rover successfully landed on the surface of Mars and sent back a selfie.

The spacecraft took the snap of the Red Planet using a camera fixed on its robotic arm.

Courtesy : Sky News

11:15, UK,