New Images of Martian Terrain Available at JPL and the University of Arizona

New images from more than 750 recent observations of Mars by an orbiting telescopic camera testify to the diversity of landscapes there.  

Intra-Crater Structure in NW Hellas Basin (ESP_017196_1455)

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are now available on NASA's Planetary Data System and on the camera team's website. The features visible in the images range from oddly sculpted terrain inside a giant crater to frosted dunes, deformed craters, old gullies and pits strung along fractured ground.

This new batch brings the tally from the high-resolution camera to more than 1.4 million image products derived from more than 14,200 observations. Each observation can reveal features as small as desks in areas covering several square miles.

The camera is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which reached Mars in 2006. For more information about the mission, see http://www.nasa.gov/mro.

This subimage from an observation by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter covers a small portion of the northwest quadrant of Hellas Basin, or Hellas Planitia, on southern Mars. With a diameter of about 2,200 kilometers (about 1,400 miles) and a depth reaching the lowest elevations on Mars, Hellas is one of the largest impact craters in the solar system.

This area of Hellas Basin has a number of unusual features which are thought to be quite old because of the high crater density. Here a crater inside Hellas has been filled with material. This may be related to volcanic activity on the northwestern rim of Hellas.

However, it might also be related to water and water ice. There is evidence elsewhere that the ground here is ice-rich. HiRISE is being used to investigate this in more detail when Hellas Basin is free from atmospheric dust.

This image is a portion of the HiRISE observation catalogued as ESP_017196_1455, taken on March 28, 2010, and centered at 33.95 degrees south latitude, 48.50 degrees east longitude.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.

New images from Mars

Geezer Gullies at Tempe Terra (ESP_017015_2245)	Viscous Flow in Protonilus Mensae (ESP_017024_2230)	Star Dunes in Crater in Tyrrhena Terra (ESP_017036_1665)
Icy Northern Dunes (ESP_017043_2640)	Pits along Fractures in Crater Floor Material (ESP_017103_2255)	Collapse! (ESP_017171_2190)
Intra-Crater Structure in NW Hellas Basin (ESP_017196_1455)	Big Impact-Triggered Dust Avalanche (ESP_017229_2110)	Megabreccia in the Central Uplift of Stokes Crater (ESP_017257_2360)
Deformed Craters and Polygons in Utopia Planitia (ESP_017260_2225)	Knobs near Reull Vallis (ESP_017286_1430)	Light-Toned Rocks inside a Crater (ESP_017292_1680)