Starship Asterisk*

That's one of those synthetic images where the surface imagery is layered on a topographic map and rendered in a perspective view. They've got a lighting model that's forced on them by the CGI software they're using, and those tend to be relentlessly conventional. I'm talking about the real images f...

Is there something about astronomers and geologists (planetologists?) that makes them expect to see light coming up from beneath when they view a picture? Almost every picture I see of Mars or any other planertary body from orbit seems to be oriented so the illumination is from below, so the craters...