India's Mars Orbiter Mission Mangalyaan has sent home stunning three-dimensional images of a 5000-km long canyon on the red planet, on the occasion of Independence Day.

The 3-D images captured with the Mars Colour Camera from a height of nearly 2,000 km are of Valles Marineris, which is the largest-known canyon complex in the solar system.

The package includes pictures of the Opir Chasma, a valley 62 km wide and bordered by high cliffs.

Mangalyaan reached Mars 15 months after it was launched in September 2014, making India the only country after the US, Russia and Europe to have successfully undertaken missions to Mars in its maiden attempt.

Earlier this year it beamed back high resolution pictures of prominent Martian landmarks including the Aurorae Chaos -- a part of chaos terrain which comprises irregular flat topped blocks several kilometres across. The pictures showed signs of fluvial activity, meaning that water flowed there sometime in the past.

India's Mars Orbiter Mission, which costs around Rs 450 crores and is less than the budget of Hollywood space movie 'Gravity', was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

On September 24, 2014, the MOM spacecraft was successfully inserted into the Martian orbitafter a 298-day transit to Mars.

Thus, India became the first Asian country to reach Mars and the first in the world to enter Martian orbit in its first attempt.

The mission is a 'technology demonstrator' project to develop the technologies for design, planning, management, and operations of an interplanetary mission.