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Radar Slice Through Subsurfa
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| title |
Radar Slice Through Subsurface of Equatorial Deposits on Mars |
| description |
This image combining a topographic map viewed obliquely (color portion of image) with a radargram of the subsurface (monochrome portion) shows features of mysterious Martian deposits named the Medusae Fossae Formation. The westward-looking view includes the divide between Martian highlands on the south and lowlands on the north, spanning a range from about 12 degrees south latitude (left edge of image) to 5 degrees north latitude (right edge of image). The deposits of the Medusae Fossae Formation are found in the lowlands along the divide, in the center foreground. The radar sounder on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has revealed echoes from what is interpreted as a boundary between the overlying deposits and underlying lowland plains buried by these deposits. The radar information presented here is from downward-looking radar observations by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS, jointly funded by NASA and the Italian Space Agency) as Mars Express flew a south-to-north path at about 188 degrees east longitude. The topographic map, using 1990s data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter, extends from that transect to about 135 degrees east longitude. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages NASA's roles in Mars Express for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Italian Space Agency/Univ. of Rome/Smithsonian |
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3-D View of Mars
| Title |
3-D View of Mars |
| Full Description |
This first three-dimensional picture of Mars' north pole enables scientists to estimate the volume of its water ice cap with unprecedented precision, and to study its surface variations and the heights of clouds in the region for the first time. Approximately 2.6 million of these laser pulse measurements were assembled into a topographic grid of the North pole with a spatial resolution of 0.6 miles (one kilometer) and a vertical accuracy of 15-90 feet (5-30 meters). The principal investigator for MOLA is Dr. David E. Smith of Goddard. The MOLA instrument was designed and built by the Laser Remote Sensing Branch of the Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics at Goddard. The Mars Global Surveyor Mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for the NASA Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. |
| Date |
01/01/1999 |
| NASA Center |
Goddard Space Flight Center |
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Pathfinder Air Bags
| Title |
Pathfinder Air Bags |
| Full Description |
Engineers test huge, multi-lobed air bags, which will envelope and protect the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft before it impacts the surface of Mars. The air bags, manufactured by ILC Dover of Frederica, Delaware, are composed of four large bags with six smaller, interconnected spheres within each bag. The bags measure 5 meters (17 feet) tall and about 5 meters (17 feet) in diameter. As Pathfinder is descending to the Martian surface on a parachute, an onboard altimeter inside the lander will monitor its distance from the ground. The computer will inflate these large air bags about 100 meters (330 feet) above the surface of Mars. ILC Dover is the same company that manufactures spacesuits. |
| Date |
06/14/1995 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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Acheron Fossae in Visible Li
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| title |
Acheron Fossae in Visible Light |
| Description |
This visible-light image, taken by the thermal emission imaging system's camera on NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, shows the highly fractured, faulted and deformed Acheron Fossae region of Mars. The scarps visible in this image are approximately one kilometer (3,300 feet) high, based on topography derived from the laser altimeter instrument on Mars Global Surveyor. Dark streaks only 50 meters (164 feet) across can be seen on some of the cliff faces. These streaks may be formed when the pervasive dust mantle covering this region gives way on steep slopes to create dust avalanches. The image also shows impact craters as small as 500 meters (1,640 feet) in diameter, as well as smooth and textured plains. Acheron Fossae is located 1,050 kilometers (650 miles) north of the large shield volcano Olympus Mons. This image covers an area about 18 by 9 kilometers (11 by 6 miles) centered at 37 degrees north, 131 degrees west. North is to the top of this image, which was acquired on February 19, 2002, at about 3:15 p.m. local Martian time. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The thermal emission imaging system was provided by Arizona State University, Tempe. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Photo Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Arizona State University |
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| Description |
*Full Res(984 kB)**High View of Melas* Soaring high above Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," viewers look down and catch a sight resembling parts of the desert West of the United States, but on a vastly greater scale. Here the canyon averages over a hundred miles wide, and its floor is heaped with rocks, sediments, and landslide debris. Within the canyon walls lie possibly hundreds of layers filling many pages of Mars' geologic record. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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First HiRISE Image of Mars:
…
| title |
First HiRISE Image of Mars: Topographic Model from Photoclinometry |
| Description |
http://www.nasa.gov/mro [ http://www.nasa.gov/mro ] or http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu [ http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu ]. For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov [ http://www.nasa.gov ]. 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 is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/USGS, This is a topographic map of part of the area covered by the first image of Mars obtained by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The image was processed at the U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, by a technique called photoclinometry (or, more descriptively, "shape-from-shading"). This method allows elevations to be reconstructed from a single image by noting how surfaces sloping toward the sun appear brighter than areas that slope away from it. This image is almost ideal for such interpretation because the low sun angle reveals even subtle slopes with dramatic contrast, and variations in the brightness of surface materials (which could be confused with slopes) are minimal. At left is the region of the image that was analyzed, tinted to approximate the visual appearance of the Martian surface. This region is a square 20.4 kilometers (12.7 miles) wide (8,192 pixels by 8,192 pixels at a scale of 2.49 meters or 8.17 feet per pixel). At right is a color-coded topographic contour map of the same area. The total range of elevations is 1.6 kilometers (1 mile), with low areas shown in purple and high areas in red. Contours mark each 20-meter (66-foot) change in elevation. Photoclinometry gives relative rather than absolute heights, but the overall height and shape of features in this map, such as the ridge Ogygis Rupes in the center, agree reasonably well with results from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, an instrument with high absolute accuracy but relatively low spatial resolution. The real value of mapping by photoclinometry, however, is that it reveals the details of the smallest topographic features resolved by the image. In this example, the image was resampled by a factor of 2 before processing, so the topographic map has a scale of 5 meters (16 feet) per pixel and resolves features as small as 15 meters (49 feet). Computer-generated three-dimensional close-ups of the surface provide one way to visualize these small but important clues to Martian geologic history. This illustration shows a subset of AEB_000001_0000_Red, which was taken by the HiRISE camera on March 24, 2006. The image is oriented such that north is 7 degrees to the left of up. The range to the target was 2,493 kilometers (1,549 miles). At this distance the image scale is 2.49 meters (8.17 feet) per pixel, so objects as small as 7.5 meters (24.6 feet) are resolved. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 07:33 and the scene is illuminated from the upper right with a solar incidence angle of 78.1 degrees, thus the sun was about 11.9 degrees above the horizon. At an Ls of 29 degrees (with Ls an indicator of Mars' position in its orbit around the sun), the season on Mars is southern autumn. Images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and additional information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available online at: |
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| Description |
*Full Res(683 kB)**Winding Side Canyon (Louros Valles)* Viewers experience roller-coaster twists and turns as they fly up a winding tributary valley that feeds into Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars." Geologists think channels such as these were carved by water as it escaped through faults and cracks in the subsurface. This caused the ground above it to collapse, leaving a meandering channel that resembles a stream valley on Earth. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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| Description |
*Full Res (1.3 MB)**Mars Canyon with Los Angeles for Scale* A "Grand Canyon of Mars" slices across the Red Planet near its equator. This canyon -- Valles Marineris, or the Mariner Valley -- is 10 times longer and deeper than Arizona's Grand Canyon, and 20 times wider. As the picture shows, you could drop the whole Los Angeles basin into a small part of Valles Marineris and leave plenty of room to spare. In length, the canyon extends far enough that it could reach across the United States from East Coast to West Coast, while its rim stands more than 25,000 feet high, nearly as tall as Earth's Mount Everest. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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| Description |
*Full Res(1.2 MB)**Mars Canyon View* Flying through the canyons and over the ridges of Valles Marineris, viewers can experience some of the thrills that gripped explorers who pushed into unknown regions on Earth. Buried in the rocks of this magnificent Martian canyon lies a history book of Mars that scientists have just begun to open. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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| Description |
*Full Res(797 MB)**Landslide Run-Out* Ages ago, a giant earthquake shook the walls of Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," and triggered a catastrophic landslide that crashed down 15,000 feet. Diving into the canyon on a simulated aerial flight, viewers fly over this billion-ton rockslide that extends for nearly a hundred miles. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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The Geodesy Campaign
PIA02023
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
The Geodesy Campaign |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Every day, Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) circles the red planet just over twelve times, and from their vantage point at 400 km altitude, the fisheye lenses of the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)Wide Angle (WA) cameras can see the entire surface. During typical operations, highly-summed two-color image strips are transmitted for each orbit and assembled into daily global weather maps, with a resolution of about 7.5 km (4.6 miles) per pixel. The small size and low resolution of these strips leaves most of the data bandwidth available for higher-priority Narrow Angle images. During May 1999, however, the Wide Angle cameras are being used instead to map the whole planet at the intrinsic resolution of the WA camera -- 230 meters (750 feet) per pixel. While the blue WA camera continues to capture the global map so that daily weather can still be monitored, the other WA camera (with the red filter) is building up swaths of full-resolution coverage. The Deep Space Network is tracking the spacecraft 24 hours a day during this geodesy campaign, and imaging data are being returned for about two-thirds of the time at 69 kbits/sec(somewhat faster than a 56K modem). During the other third of the time, the spacecraft is transmitting back to Earth one day's worth of recorded data from the other science instruments. Geodesy is the measurement of a planet's shape and the location of features on its surface. The intent of the geodesy campaign is to acquire, during a short period of time, simultaneous measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), the Radio Science (RS)investigation, and the MOC. MOLA observations provide precise, absolute measurements of a set of profiles around the planet, but their spacing is quite large relative to their resolution. RS measurements provide detailed information about the position of the spacecraft, critical to processing both the MOC and MOLA data. MOC provides both a higher resolution base map on which the other data can be overlain and, using stereoscopic measurements, provides the potential for a ten-fold improvement in the spatial resolution of the topography. Owing to the nature of the MGS orbit, the groundtrack returns to within about 30 km of a given orbit 88 orbits (about one week) later. Thus, it takes a week to build up global coverage at full resolution. Figure MOC2-127a [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02022 ], shows the planning map of coverage during the first week of the campaign (top), and the resulting actual coverage (bottom). Gaps caused by recorder playbacks must be filled in a second week of imaging by moving the times of the playbacks. Also in the second week, stereo coverage is acquired by re-imaging areas from adjacent orbits at aside-looking angle. Figure MOC2-127b shows an example of such stereo from the Mare Tyrrhenum region, centered at 27.3°S, 227.0°W (NOTE: Red-blue glasses are needed to view the stereo effect). The crater that dominates the center of Figure MOC2-127b is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) across. Stereo coverage will be completed in the third and fourth weeks. The remaining data volume will be used to fill in gaps created by data losses, and to acquire a somewhat lower resolution global color image through the blue wide angle camera. The resulting dataset will provide global color and stereo coverage at about 300 m/pixel. Although similar coverage was obtained by the Viking mission in the late 1970s, Viking took over three years to cover the planet, and there are significant variations in lighting, weather, and surface features in the Viking images. A substantial improvement in the longitude/latitude grid is expected, which will have important benefits to future Mars exploration. Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. |
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The Geodesy Campaign
PIA02022
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
The Geodesy Campaign |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Figure MOC2-127b [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02023 ] is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) across. Stereo coverage will be completed in the third and fourth weeks. The remaining data volume will be used to fill in gaps created by data losses, and to acquire a somewhat lower resolution global color image through the blue wide angle camera. The resulting dataset will provide global color and stereo coverage at about 300 m/pixel. Although similar coverage was obtained by the Viking mission in the late 1970s, Viking took over three years to cover the planet, and there are significant variations in lighting, weather, and surface features in the Viking images. A substantial improvement in the longitude/latitude grid is expected, which will have important benefits to future Mars exploration. Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO., Every day, Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) circles the red planet just over twelve times, and from their vantage point at 400 km altitude, the fisheye lenses of the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)Wide Angle (WA) cameras can see the entire surface. During typical operations, highly-summed two-color image strips are transmitted for each orbit and assembled into daily global weather maps, with a resolution of about 7.5 km (4.6 miles) per pixel. The small size and low resolution of these strips leaves most of the data bandwidth available for higher-priority narrow Angle images. During May 1999, however, the Wide Angle cameras are being used instead to map the whole planet at the intrinsic resolution of the WA camera -- 230 meters (750 feet) per pixel. While the blue WA camera continues to capture the global map so that daily weather can still be monitored, the other WA camera (with the red filter) is building up swaths of full-resolution coverage. The Deep Space Network is tracking the spacecraft 24 hours a day during this geodesy campaign, and imaging data are being returned for about two-thirds of the time at 69 kbits/sec (somewhat faster than a 56K modem). During the other third of the time, the spacecraft is transmitting back to Earth one day's worth of recorded data from the other science instruments. Geodesy is the measurement of a planet's shape and the location of features on its surface. The intent of the geodesy campaign is to acquire, during a short period of time, simultaneous measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), the Radio Science (RS)investigation, and the MOC. MOLA observations provide precise, absolute measurements of a set of profiles around the planet, but their spacing is quite large relative to their resolution. RS measurements provide detailed information about the position of the spacecraft, critical to processing both the MOC and MOLA data. MOC provides both a higher resolution base map on which the other data can be overlain and, using stereoscopic measurements, provides the potential for a ten-fold improvement in the spatial resolution of the topography. Owing to the nature of the MGS orbit, the groundtrack returns to within about 30 km of a given orbit 88 orbits (about one week) later. Thus, it takes a week to build up global coverage at full resolution. Figure MOC2-127a shows the planning map of coverage during the first week of the campaign (top), and the resulting actual coverage (bottom). Gaps caused by recorder playbacks must be filled in a second week of imaging by moving the times of the playbacks. Also in the second week, stereo coverage is acquired by re-imaging areas from adjacent orbits at aside-looking angle. Figure MOC2-127b [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02023 ] shows an example of such stereo from the Mare Tyrrhenum region, centered at 27.3°S, 227.0°W (NOTE: Red-blue glasses are needed to view the stereo effect). The crater that dominates the center of |
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Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
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Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
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Distributory Fan Near Holden
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PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Distributory Fan Near Holden
…
PIA04869
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
| Title |
Distributory Fan Near Holden Crater |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Click on image for larger view A region near the center of the fan has a loop, the inverted floor of a former meandering stream that was cut off as the channel adjusted its course. Meanders and cut-off meanders are the prime evidence for persistent flow of water through this area sometime early in martian history.Click on image for larger view A region near the southeast edge of the fan shows inverted channels at different levels within the sedimentary deposit, indicating a long and complex history of water-related processes. One ridge crosses over another just left of the center of this frame. The top of the lower ridge is the former floor of a channel that was transporting water and sediment toward the lower right. The top of the upper ridge was once the floor of a channel that moved material toward the right or upper right. The lower ridge is the older channel. It was completely filled and buried beneath the surface when the upper channel formed.Click on image for larger view A regional context image shows the location of the fan with a white box. West of the fan are several valleys that fed water and sediment to the crater holding the fan (labeled "Holden NE" Crater). This map is a mosaic of daytime infrared images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. The contours are topography relative to Mars' zero-elevation level, derived from observations by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on Mars Global Surveyor. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The 10-kilometer scale bar is about 6.2 miles across.Click on image for larger view Additional information about Mars Global Surveyor is online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ ]. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and operates the spacecraft., November 13, 2003 Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Closer looks at two portions of the fan show observations critical to the story. White boxes overlaid on the image show the locations of those two areas. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
|
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cr
…
PIA09190
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
| Title |
Light-Toned Bedrock Along Cracks as Evidence of Fluid Alteration |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system. The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures. The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light. The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel. The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB). A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest. Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint. Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders. Supplement 5, shows a high-density population of joints. 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, is the prime contractor for the project and 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 and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. |
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Elevation Measurement Profil
…
PIA01338
Sol (our sun)
MOLA
| Title |
Elevation Measurement Profile of Mars |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
The elevation measurements were collected by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) aboard Global Surveyor during the spring and summer of 1998, as the spacecraft orbited Mars in an interim elliptical orbit. MOLA sends laser pulses toward the planet and measures the precise amount of time before the reflected signals are received back at the instrument. From this data, scientists can infer surface and cloud heights. During its mapping of the north polar cap, the MOLA instrument also made the first direct measurement of cloud heights on the red planet. Reflections from the atmosphere were obtained at altitudes from just above the surface to more than nine miles (approximately 15 kilometers) on about 80 percent of the laser profiles. Most clouds were observed at high latitudes, at the boundary of the ice cap and surrounding terrain. Clouds observed over the polar cap are likely composed of carbon dioxide that condenses out of the atmosphere during northern hemisphere winter. Many clouds exhibit dynamic structure probably caused by winds interacting with surface topography, much as occurs on Earth when winds collide with mountains to produce turbulence. The principal investigator for MOLA is Dr. David E. Smith of Goddard. The MOLA instrument was designed and built by the Laser Remote Sensing Branch of Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics at Goddard. The Mars Global Surveyor Mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for the NASA Office of Space Science. |
|
High View of Melas
PIA02893
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
High View of Melas |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Soaring high above Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," viewers look down and catch a sight resembling parts of the desert West of the United States, but on a vastly greater scale. Here the canyon averages over a hundred miles wide, and its floor is heaped with rocks, sediments, and landslide debris. Within the canyon walls lie possibly hundreds of layers filling many pages of Mars' geologic record. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
High View of Melas
PIA02893
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
High View of Melas |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Soaring high above Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," viewers look down and catch a sight resembling parts of the desert West of the United States, but on a vastly greater scale. Here the canyon averages over a hundred miles wide, and its floor is heaped with rocks, sediments, and landslide debris. Within the canyon walls lie possibly hundreds of layers filling many pages of Mars' geologic record. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
High View of Melas
PIA02893
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
High View of Melas |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Soaring high above Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," viewers look down and catch a sight resembling parts of the desert West of the United States, but on a vastly greater scale. Here the canyon averages over a hundred miles wide, and its floor is heaped with rocks, sediments, and landslide debris. Within the canyon walls lie possibly hundreds of layers filling many pages of Mars' geologic record. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
High View of Melas
PIA02893
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
High View of Melas |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Soaring high above Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," viewers look down and catch a sight resembling parts of the desert West of the United States, but on a vastly greater scale. Here the canyon averages over a hundred miles wide, and its floor is heaped with rocks, sediments, and landslide debris. Within the canyon walls lie possibly hundreds of layers filling many pages of Mars' geologic record. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
High View of Melas
PIA02893
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
High View of Melas |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Soaring high above Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," viewers look down and catch a sight resembling parts of the desert West of the United States, but on a vastly greater scale. Here the canyon averages over a hundred miles wide, and its floor is heaped with rocks, sediments, and landslide debris. Within the canyon walls lie possibly hundreds of layers filling many pages of Mars' geologic record. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
High View of Melas
PIA02893
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
High View of Melas |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Soaring high above Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," viewers look down and catch a sight resembling parts of the desert West of the United States, but on a vastly greater scale. Here the canyon averages over a hundred miles wide, and its floor is heaped with rocks, sediments, and landslide debris. Within the canyon walls lie possibly hundreds of layers filling many pages of Mars' geologic record. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
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Winding Side Canyon (Louros
…
PIA02892
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
Winding Side Canyon (Louros Valles) |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Viewers experience roller-coaster twists and turns as they fly up a winding tributary valley that feeds into Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars." Geologists think channels such as these were carved by water as it escaped through faults and cracks in the subsurface. This caused the ground above it to collapse, leaving a meandering channel that resembles a stream valley on Earth. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
Winding Side Canyon (Louros
…
PIA02892
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
Winding Side Canyon (Louros Valles) |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Viewers experience roller-coaster twists and turns as they fly up a winding tributary valley that feeds into Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars." Geologists think channels such as these were carved by water as it escaped through faults and cracks in the subsurface. This caused the ground above it to collapse, leaving a meandering channel that resembles a stream valley on Earth. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
Winding Side Canyon (Louros
…
PIA02892
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
Winding Side Canyon (Louros Valles) |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Viewers experience roller-coaster twists and turns as they fly up a winding tributary valley that feeds into Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars." Geologists think channels such as these were carved by water as it escaped through faults and cracks in the subsurface. This caused the ground above it to collapse, leaving a meandering channel that resembles a stream valley on Earth. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
Winding Side Canyon (Louros
…
PIA02892
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
Winding Side Canyon (Louros Valles) |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Viewers experience roller-coaster twists and turns as they fly up a winding tributary valley that feeds into Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars." Geologists think channels such as these were carved by water as it escaped through faults and cracks in the subsurface. This caused the ground above it to collapse, leaving a meandering channel that resembles a stream valley on Earth. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
Winding Side Canyon (Louros
…
PIA02892
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
Winding Side Canyon (Louros Valles) |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Viewers experience roller-coaster twists and turns as they fly up a winding tributary valley that feeds into Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars." Geologists think channels such as these were carved by water as it escaped through faults and cracks in the subsurface. This caused the ground above it to collapse, leaving a meandering channel that resembles a stream valley on Earth. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
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Landslide Run-Out
PIA02894
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
Landslide Run-Out |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Ages ago, a giant earthquake shook the walls of Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," and triggered a catastrophic landslide that crashed down 15,000 feet. Diving into the canyon on a simulated aerial flight, viewers fly over this billion-ton rockslide that extends for nearly a hundred miles. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
Landslide Run-Out
PIA02894
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
Landslide Run-Out |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Ages ago, a giant earthquake shook the walls of Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," and triggered a catastrophic landslide that crashed down 15,000 feet. Diving into the canyon on a simulated aerial flight, viewers fly over this billion-ton rockslide that extends for nearly a hundred miles. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
|
Landslide Run-Out
PIA02894
Sol (our sun)
Thermal Emission Imaging Sys
…
| Title |
Landslide Run-Out |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Ages ago, a giant earthquake shook the walls of Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," and triggered a catastrophic landslide that crashed down 15,000 feet. Diving into the canyon on a simulated aerial flight, viewers fly over this billion-ton rockslide that extends for nearly a hundred miles. This scene comes from """Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. |
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