View allAll Photos Tagged MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of frost on gullies in a crater on the northern plains of Mars. Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of cracks filled with light-colored material. The original title said there is a 250 meter diameter crater but I can't see one...
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of dry ice and water ice near the Martian south pole. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: The Changing Climate of Mars
A story of changes in the climate of Mars is told by icy deposits. Remnants of a formerly extensive deposit composed of dry ice layered together with dust and water ice form what is known as the south polar residual cap.
This deposit is shrinking over time as the frozen carbon dioxide turns to vapor. Rounded valleys that give the deposit an appearance resembling Swiss cheese are enlarging over time, exposing an older surface below that is likely made up of water ice.
Read more: www.uahirise.org/ESP_056563_0960
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Edited and cropped Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a bluish ("purple" according to the MRO headline) mountain on Mars.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a terraced crater on Mars. Terraced craters can be formed when there are layers of material with different strengths where the asteroid strikes a planet.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter MARCI PR image of Mars before and during the current global dust storm. This is an animated GIF (created by NASA) of the rotation of Mars during the dust storm.
To view animation, click on View all sizes and select Original size.
Image source: photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22487
Original caption: Side-by-side movies shows how dust has enveloped the Red Planet, courtesy of the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The view from May shows Valles Marineris chasms (left), Meridiani center, an autumn dust storm in Acidalia (top) and the early spring south polar cap (bottom). The view from July shows the same regions, but most of the surface was obscured by the planet-encircling dust cloud and haze.
Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, provided and operates MARCI. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.
More information about Curiosity is online at www.nasa.gov/msl and mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Image Addition Date:
2018-07-19
This image spans the floor of Ius Chasma’s southern trench. Ius Chasma is located in the western region of Valles Marineris, the solar system’s largest canyon. This canyon is well known for its fine stratigraphic layers modified by wind and water. The outcrops contain interchanging layers of dark and bright rocks. The layered deposits consist of dark basalt lava flows and bright sedimentary layers. The sediments are likely to be from atmospheric dust, sand, or alluvium from an ancient water source. The layers are visible on the gentle slopes above the canyon floor, in pitted areas, and in small mesa buttes. The floor of the canyon is littered with megaripples that are aligned in a north-south direction.
This image shows a landslide along the margin of a small mesa in the Xanthe Terra region of Mars. This particular landslide has many blocks and boulders on the surface. It is likely these large pieces of the mesa wall rock rafted downslope when the landslide occurred and not jumbled and pulverized into smaller sizes. This observation gives some insight into the possible physics involved in downslope transport of rock materials. Landslides and other mass wasting features are also important in the overall study of Mars as they give some indication of the stability of rock materials.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter PR image of either Oxia or Mawrth Vallis - the caption is surprisingly vague... Inverted grayscale variant.
Image source: photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22805
Original caption: HiRISE plays an important role in finding suitable landing sites for future rover missions. Scientists have narrowed down the candidate landing sites for the upcoming European ExoMars rover mission to two regions: the plains of Oxia and Mawrth Vallis.
Images covering these areas aid scientists in picking a location that will be both scientifically interesting and a safe place to land and operate. HiRISE pictures help to assess the risk for each particular location so that a final landing site can be selected.
If you look very closely, the image may appear hazy. This is due to additional dust lingering in the atmosphere from the massive summer global dust storm at the time we acquired this observation. ExoMars is due to launch to Mars in 2020.
The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. [The original image scale is 28.3 centimeters (11.1 inches) per pixel (with 1 x 1 binning); objects on the order of 85 centimeters (33.5 inches) across are resolved.] North is up.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Image Addition Date:
2018-10-29
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a pit (a few meters across - about the size of a sedan) on the flank of the volcano Arisa Mons. Color/processing variant - you still can't really see the bottom of the pit...
This HiRISE image shows the complex nature of sand dunes in the Vastitas Borealis region of Mars, just south of the north polar region. The broad shapes of the dunes are formed by variations in the regional winds. But the high spatial resolution of HiRISE enables recognition of finer textures, a thumbprint texture of linear dunes on the broader dune forms. Study of this texture can add insight on aeolian processes in this region of Mars. ASU-IPF-3006
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a candidate landing spot (no mission indicated) in McLaughlin Crater.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of colorful (especially after I get through with it) layers of bedrock in Terra Sirenum. Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a bluish ("purple" according to the MRO headline) mountain on Mars.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of an exhumed crater in Meridiani Planum. Color/processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a large canyon in the mountains of Gale Crater, whose slopes are being monitored for changes. Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of fans in Macclesfield. Color/processing variant.
Image source: www.uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_064469_0945
Original caption: Every Martian spring, fans of dust are blown out from under the seasonal layer of carbon dioxide ice that forms a polar cap over the winter.
Gas blowing out from under the ice carries with it a load of dust that is deposited on the surface in a direction determined by the wind at the time of the eruption. Like windsocks, these fans in a polar area we’ve dubbed Macclesfield, record the direction that the wind was blowing.
A citizen science task at Planet Four enlists the public to outline the fans. Their measurements go into a data base that will ultimately help us to understand weather on Mars.
ID: ESP_064469_0945
date: 27 April 2020
altitude: 245 km
NASA/JPL/UArizona
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of sand dunes in Nili Patera on Mars. Color/processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a small remnant of Mars' southern ice cap, where "ice" means "dry ice"/frozen carbon dioxide.
This crescent view of Earth's Moon in infrared wavelengths comes from a camera test by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on its way to Mars. The mission's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera took the image on Sept. 8, 2005, while at a distance of about 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) from the Moon. The dark feature on the right is Mare Crisium. From that distance, the Moon would appear as a star-like point of light to the unaided eye. The test verified the camera's focusing capability and provided an opportunity for calibration. The spacecraft's Context Camera and Optical Navigation Camera also performed as expected during the test.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a scarp in Mars' north polar region.
Original caption: Sculpted Cool – This is part of a steep scarp within the North Polar layered deposits. Scarps like this have the potential for active avalanches.
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona (319 km above the surface, less than 10 km left to right.)
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a possible small volcano (the vent in the middle of the image) in Ceraunius Fossae.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a candidate landing site in Melas Chasma for the Mars 2020 mission. (I had to convert the original image into a "round" image due to the size of the original image.)
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of an exhumed crater in Meridiani Planum. Color/processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of clay-rich terrain in Oxia Planum and a candidate landing site for ESA's ExoMars.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter PR image of sand dunes in the center of Juventae Chasma. Context image.
Original caption: The ultimate origin of the sediment that forms Martian dunes has long been debated. While sand dunes on Earth are primarily sourced by quartz-bearing components of granitic continental crust, it's often suggested that sand on Mars derives from eroded volcanic flows or sedimentary deposits, but exact sources are often vague.
This image reveals a unique situation where this small dune field occurs along the summit of the large 1-mile-tall mound near the center of Juventae Chasma. The layered mound slopes are far too steep for dunes to climb, and bedform sand is unlikely to come from purely airborne material. Instead, the mound's summit displays several dark-toned, mantled deposits that are adjacent to the dunes and appear to be eroding into fans of sandy material.
Along with local HiRISE images, spectral data from other instruments on MRO have confirmed such units are likely to be the sand source for these mound summit dunes and reveal how landscape evolution on Mars might occur.
The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. [The original image scale is 27.8 centimeters (10.9 inches) per pixel (with 1 x 1 binning); objects on the order of 83 centimeters (32.7 inches) across are resolved.] North is up.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Image Addition Date:
2018-10-01
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a new impact crater on Mars with what looks like exposed ice next to the crater itself. Color/processing variant.
This observation shows layered bedrock that has been faulted and tilted. These layers were likely horizontal when the materials were first deposited, but are now tilted to high angles, approaching 90 degrees, so we get a good cross-sectional view from a bird's-eye view. The layers have distinctive colors, textures, and thicknesses, so it is easy to correlate layers from place to place. That makes it easy to measure the offset along the many faults breaking the layers. ASU-IPF-3087
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of exposed layers in southern Argyre Planitia. Color variant.
This image shows a small rayed impact crater, about 160 meters (530 feet) in diameter, in the Tharsis region in the northern hemisphere of Mars. Relatively recent impacts form rays of ejecta that spray out radially from the crater. In addition to relatively fine material, large boulders and smaller secondary craters are visible in the rays surrounding this crater. Secondary craters are recognized by their shallow depths (in comparison to primary craters), irregular shapes, and appearance in clusters and linear chains.
This image of Utopia Planitia shows some deformed craters. The crater rims are not round but elliptical and even angular. The region is interesting because there are surface features (e.g., polygonal cracks) which suggest that water ice is close to the surface. A good example is just to the south of the featured image here. Other craters in the area appear old and eroded. Many are filled with material which could contain quantities of water ice. Were these deformed craters the result of an oblique impact or were they deformed afterwards by an as-yet unknown process?
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of chaotic terrain on the floor of Candor Chasma on Mars. Color/processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of northeast Syrtis Major, which is a candidate landing site for the Mars 2020 mission. Color/processing variant.
One of our JPL stars: Armin Kleinboehl. Armin studies the structure and dynamics of the Martian atmosphere.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a secondary crater (a crater created when ejecta from the primary crater impacts onto a surface, in this case, Mars) on Mars that resulted in a splash. Color/processing variant (which brings out the splash better).
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of bright sand dunes (looking very dark) in Syria Planum.
Image source: www.uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_032735_1680
Original caption: Bright Dunes in Syria Planum
This image shows curious bright deposits in Syria Planum, a high elevation region near the summit of the Tharsis rise.
Syria Planum has a history of surface changes documented in telescopic and low resolution orbital observations since the Viking era. The surface changes result from the relentless deposition and removal of bright dust, as the dust is transported by winds blowing from north to south across the rocky dark surface.
Isolated patches where thick dust deposits have accumulated can be identified in THEMIS night-time infrared observations. The dust deposits are cooler (darker) than the rocky surface both in daytime and at night. Our HiRISE image was centered on one of these cold spots to observe the interaction of the dust deposits with local topography.
Examining the image shows that the dust here has accumulated into linear arrays of broken ridges spaced about 50 meters apart, and extending from tens to hundreds of meters in length. Dust deposits are visible along the rim of the impact crater but much of the crater's ejecta deposits are strangely dust free.
At full resolution, the ridges appear to have a morphology that is clearly distinct from sand dunes and bright transverse aeolian ridges common elsewhere on Mars. Their steep faces are on the upwind side (in the present day wind regime), opposite to the sand dunes. The ridge crests are crenulated, suggesting that the deposits are currently being eroded by the wind. Fine layering is visible in the deposits, possibly indicating an alternation of dust and sand deposition.
Deposits such as these hint that while modern Mars is relatively benign, the surface of the planet was battered by much more ferocious winds in the recent past, perhaps during periods of high obliquity.
ID: ESP_032735_1680
date: 21 July 2013
altitude: 252 km
NASA/JPL/UArizona