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Rock Glacier in the Hellas Montes - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Natural color image of a rock glacier in the Hellas Montes, a mountain range along the southeastern rim of the 2300 km (1400 mi) wide Hellas Basin. Rock glaciers occur where large amounts of ice (probably forming true glaciers) were once present, but have been lost to climate change. Rocks mixed in with the ice near the base of these former glaciers provide an insulating effect, allowing some ice to survive and continue to flow downhill. Here ice preserved in the bottom crater is flowing through a notch in the crater rim into another crater, which sits a couple hundred meters lower.
This false color was created using the CRISM imaging spectrometer. Each pixel of a CRISM image contains a 500 point spectrum, from which a color can be reconstructed. This reconstructed color was overlaid on a higher-resolution image taken with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera (CTX), which simultaneously took a photo while CRISM was collecting data.
This image was taken on December 25, 2006. It uses CRISM observation HRL000038d3 and CTX observation P02_001938_1408_XI_39S257W
Image Credit: NASA / JPL / JHUAPL / MSSS / Justin Cowart
Rock Glacier in the Hellas Montes - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Natural color image of a rock glacier in the Hellas Montes, a mountain range along the southeastern rim of the 2300 km (1400 mi) wide Hellas Basin. Rock glaciers occur where large amounts of ice (probably forming true glaciers) were once present, but have been lost to climate change. Rocks mixed in with the ice near the base of these former glaciers provide an insulating effect, allowing some ice to survive and continue to flow downhill. Here ice preserved in the bottom crater is flowing through a notch in the crater rim into another crater, which sits a couple hundred meters lower.
This false color was created using the CRISM imaging spectrometer. Each pixel of a CRISM image contains a 500 point spectrum, from which a color can be reconstructed. This reconstructed color was overlaid on a higher-resolution image taken with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera (CTX), which simultaneously took a photo while CRISM was collecting data.
This image was taken on December 25, 2006. It uses CRISM observation HRL000038d3 and CTX observation P02_001938_1408_XI_39S257W
Image Credit: NASA / JPL / JHUAPL / MSSS / Justin Cowart