Mars

With a telescope fifty centimeters in diameter, the largest and most powerful camera that has ever been sent to another planet has been creating high-resolution images of Mars since 2006. HiRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, is on a mission to identify future landing sites for robots. This opulent coffee-table book presents a selection of the best of more than 28,000 in part color photographs of the planet, supplemented by detailed descriptions and explanatory texts as well as a chronological outline of its scientific discovery and history.   Explosive craters, protuberant cones formed by streams of lava, eroded slate, ice formations, stone rings, dunes, mysterious recesses, and volcanic deposits—like never before, Mars becomes palpable in uncannily sharp and sublimely aesthetic detail, as if there were a designer at work.