(Is there) Life on Mars? | Maps We Love

Why we love it

Interact with Mars’ craters and volcanoes. See all the places humans have touched through space missions and astronomical observations. Click to reveal details of landings (or crashes). Use the map legend to irrigate the planet and see how it might look if water were indeed to create oceans and lakes on Mars. We love how this map paints a picture of Mars and all that we have done to explore that far away fiery red planet.

Why it works

Maps provide a window to places we might never see with our own eyes. This map works because it takes elevation data from USGS and reinterprets it in a way that captures the drama of the Mars landscape. It invites us to explore and through pop-ups reveals information about features and human history. The map entertains our curiosity as well—what would it be like if there was water (and then life) on Mars?

Important steps

Use colours with meaning

Project data using the Mars 2000 Cylindrical projection. The orange/plum colour was used as a metaphor for the red planet, with deeper tones for areas below the Martian areoid (vertical datum) and lighter yellows extending to the highest peaks.

Hillshade for a dramatic sky and landscape

Use ArcGIS Terrain Tools to build a dramatic sky modeled hillshade with 255 points of illumination. A cluster hillshade will pick out steep slopes and illuminate contours to represent abstract terrain.

Use craters as details and graphics to mark location

Abstract crater symbols, displayed with 70% transparency and sized proportional to the feature, will reveal landscape details. Use graphics to mark the location of spacecraft landings and crashes as a link to detail in the pop-up.

Label the planet’s features

The nomenclature database of the International Astronomical Union can be used to label the planet’s 1,800+ features. Digitize and attribute linear features. Use ArcGIS Maplex Label Engine to label the map with Garamond and Helvetica Neue.

Nomenclature database

ArcGIS Maplex Label Engine

Placeholder

Water layers let you see Mars with lakes and oceans using transparent bathymetric layers. The ocean is colored green because of Mars’ atmosphere and lighting. There’s also a hidden Easter Egg on the map…go hunt for it!

Requirements

Data and software

We used elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument on the MGS (NASA/JPL/GSF) at approximately 463m/px, official IAU/USGS nomenclature from the MRCTR GIS lab, and landing site data from NASA. Software used: ArcGIS Pro.

Download MOLA

Analysis

Analytical tools process digital elevation models for cartographic purposes. Terrain tools create various terrain representations and, combined with the elevation tinting, made the basemap. Labeling required manual digitizing of linear features to act as positional anchors.

Time

Processing various terrain representations took several hours. Labelling took a day. Water layers took another couple of days. Building the tile packages to publish online, another day or so accounting for user error and reworking. In total this map took about two weeks.

Tips and tricks

Use subtle effects to make labels readable

Use transparency to add subtle cartographic effects such as halos on labels to allow them to be legible across colorful basemaps, or on thematic overlays to diminish the visibility of symbology.

Combine terrain effects

Combine different terrain effects to create a whole for the final map. Most maps use combinations of effects to give their terrain character. This map uses four.