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Storm Chaser on Mars
March 20, 2012
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Catches a Twister in Action.
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Seen are six views of the Nili Fossae region of Mars captured by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM, one of the instruments aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter...
Six Views of Nili Fossae, as Seen by MRO's CRISM
Three images of the same location taken at different times on Mars show seasonal activity causing sand avalanches and ripple changes on a Martian dune.
Seasonal Changes in Northern Mars Dune Field
This HiRISE image shows a crater approximately 11 km (7 miles) in diameter, located in Acidalia Planitia, part of the Northern Plains. Several features in and around this crater are suggestive of f...
Signs of Fluids and Ice in Acidalia Planitia
This image is of a portion of the Southern plains region within Hellas, the largest impact basin on Mars, with a diameter of about 2300 kilometers (1400 miles).
Pitted Landforms in Southern Hellas Planitia
This observation shows a wrinkle ridge in Solis Planum, located in the Thaumasia region of Mars, a high-elevation volcanic plain located south of the Valles Marineris canyon system and east of the ...
Wrinkle Ridge in Solis Planum
This pair of images covers one of many sites on Mars where researchers use the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to study changes in gullies on slopes. Changes such as the ones v...
Changes Near Downhill End of a Martian Gully
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured these sand ripples and the large dune (at center) on Feb. 9, 2009. Color has been a...
HiRISE Finds a Dune and Ripples
Download a PDF of the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Fact Sheet.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Fact Sheet
On Mars the seasonal polar caps are composed of dry ice (carbon dioxide). In the springtime as the sun shines on the ice, it turns from solid to gas and causes erosion of the surface
Dry Ice Gone Wild
This map shows five locations where fresh impact cratering has excavated water ice from just beneath the surface of Mars (sites 1 through 5) and the Viking Lander 2 landing site (VL2), in the conte...
Expected Depths to Ice, Mid-Latitude Northern Mars
This stereo view shows an area on Mars where narrow rock ridges intersect at angles forming corners of polygons. It combines two observations from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Or...
Blade-Like Martian Walls Outline Polygons (Stereo)
Getting a spacecraft to Mars is no walk in the park - as launch engineers are well aware. But when the spacecraft in question is among the largest ever sent to the red planet, there are specific ch...
Challenges of Getting to Mars: Heavy Lifting
The long, sinuous raised ridges on this fan of material are thought to be inverted stream channels. These ridges may have been low-lying streambeds that hardened and then turned into ridges when th...
Fan in the Aeolis Region (3-D)
By analyzing radar images like the one at top of this montage, scientists discovered evidence for a past ice age in the northern polar ice cap of Mars.
Signs of a Martian Ice Age
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a close-up of a trough, along with channels draining into the depression. On the floor of the trough is some grooved material typically seen in...
Formations in Context (or, what is it?)
This map of Mars shows relative locations of three types of findings related to salt or frozen water, plus a new type of finding that may be related to both salt and water.
Ice, Salt and Warm-Season Flows on Mars
Artist concept of glacier on Mars.
Artist concept of Glaciers on Mars
Researchers estimating the amount of carbon held in the ground at the largest known carbonate-containing deposit on Mars utilized data from three different NASA Mars orbiters.
Multiple Instruments Used for Mars Carbon Estimate
Artist's concept of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter en route to Mars.
Artist's concept of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter en route to Mars.
This image from the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows an impact scar on Mars made by pieces of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft that the spacecraft shed just before entering the Mar...
Impact Scars from MSL Cruise Stage and Two Balance Weights (Figure 1)
This image shows spidery channels eroded into Martian ground. It is a Sept. 12, 2016, example from HiRISE camera high-resolution observations of more than 20 places that were chosen in 2016 on the ...
Martian 'Spiders' in Sharper Look, Thanks to Volunteers
Sand dunes often accumulate in the floors of craters. In this region of Lyot Crater, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows a field of classic barchan dunes on Jan. 24, 2018.
Once in a Blue Dune
This image from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a location associated with the novel and movie, "The Martian." It is the tale's planned landing site for the Ares 4 mis...
'The Martian' Story's Ares 4 Landing Site
Impact cratering and erosion combine to reveal the composition of the Martian underground by exposing materials from the subsurface.
Clay Minerals in Craters and Escarpments on Mars (Figure 3)
This series of images shows carbon dioxide ice sublimating (going directly from a solid to a gas) inside a pit at Mars' south pole. Each frame of the animation was taken by the HiRISE camera on NAS...
HiRISE Spots CO2 Ice Thawing
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NASA's Perseverance Rover Completes Mars Sample Depot
Filled with rock, the sample tube will be one of 10 forming a depot of tubes that could be considered for a journey to Earth by the Mars Sample Return campaign.
NASA's Perseverance Rover Deposits First Sample on Mars Surface
The mission has concluded that the solar-powered lander has run out of energy after more than four years on the Red Planet.
NASA Retires InSight Mars Lander Mission After Years of Science
The 10 sample tubes being dropped on Mars’ surface so they can be studied on Earth in the future carry an amazing diversity of Red Planet geology.
NASA's Perseverance Rover to Begin Building Martian Sample Depot
The agency’s Perseverance rover will establish the first sample depot on Mars.
NASA and ESA Agree on Next Steps to Return Mars Samples to Earth
The Mars lander’s seismometer has picked up vibrations from four separate impacts in the past two years.
NASA's InSight 'Hears' Its First Meteoroid Impacts on Mars