New technique allows scientists to view surface of Mars in super detail

A team of scientists has built up the image of the surface of Mars in great detail, including the location of Beagle-2, the UK landing craft, deploying a revolutionary image stacking and matching technique.

The researchers deployed Super-Resolution Restoration (SRR) technique, and stacked and matched images taken from orbit, to reveal objects at a resolution up to five times greater than previously achieved.

"Using novel machine vision methods, information from lower resolution images can be extracted to estimate the best possible true scene. This technique has huge potential to improve our knowledge of a planet's surface from multiple remotely sensed images," said lead author Yu Tao, research associate from the University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the UK.

"We now have the equivalent of drone-eye vision anywhere on the surface of Mars where there are enough clear repeat pictures. It allows us to see objects in much sharper focus from orbit than ever before and the picture quality is comparable to that obtained from landers," said one of the researchers, professor Jan-Peter Muller.

The technique involves the stacking and matching of pictures of the same area taken from different angles, to show up images as small as 5cm to be seen from the same 25cm telescope.

With the technique, the three sites on the planet's surface are seen in great detail, including the snaking tracks from Nasa's Spirit rover and ancient lake beds discovered by the Curiosity rover – which was still exploring the surface.

Additionally, the team from University College London has also refined the view of the Beagle 2 lander – the failed British lander from the early 2000's, which was missing in action until 2013.

Though the spacecraft had made a successful landing on the surface in 2003, the Beagle 2 failed to deploy its solar panels and so communication failed.

Beagle 2, an unsuccessful spacecraft, formed part of the European Space Agency's 2003 Mars Express mission. It was an initiative by a group of UK academics headed by Professor Colin Pillinger at the Open University, in collaboration with the University of Leicester.