Opportunity’s tracks disappear into the dunes in this raw photo image taken in February, 2009. After landing on Mars in January of 2004, Opportunity and its sister rover Spirit have been exploring and transmitting data and photos like these for over 5 years now – much longer than their expected “warranty”. Although there…
Category: Mars
A Blooming Thaw
When the Martian ice fields warm up in the spring, geysers of gas and dust burst from the frozen surface, spraying darker material into the air. This material is carried by the wind across the ground, forming patterns that mark the direction of the wind when they erupted. Much of the ice on the…
Little Devil
What looks to be a swirling dust devil is caught on camera in this raw image from the Mars rover Spirit. Dust devils on Mars are common, caused by heated air near the surface rising rapidly upwards in spinning columns, picking up dust and sand and propelled by the Martian winds. Although relatively gusty…
Bottomless Pit?
Not really, but it sure seems like it! A 900-foot-wide hole in the Tractus Fossae region of Mars drops down into blackness in this photo by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter…it looks like an entrance to a cave or “bottomless pit” but is actually just a very steep-walled depression, formed by…
A Rusty Vista
I combined five color images from the Spirit rover to make this panoramic view eastwards of its current position on the northwest edge of “Home Plate” (not visible here). The red Martian sands stretch on to the horizon, where a distant ridge rises. Raw image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Tearin’ Up the Tracks
White silicate-rich soil has been exposed beneath a rusty-red top layer by Spirit’s tires in this photo, taken last month while the rover tried to find a navigable path in the soft Martian sands. Silicate material like this hints at the presence of liquid water in the region’s past. The color here is as it…
The Land of the Midnight Sun
The sun dips toward the horizon only to arch away in this composite photo, taken over the course of 11 Martian days (or “sols”) by the Phoenix Mars Lander in July of 2008. Like the polar regions on Earth, the sun does not set for weeks during the summer season in the Martian far…
Spirit-Eye View
This image shows the view from Spirit looking east from its position at the base of a low plateau called “Home Plate” (rising to the right). Loose soil and the loss of one of its six wheels has been posing a difficulty for the rover, and it has spent the past several days trying to…
Feature: Interview With Mars Mission Control
I recently had the chance to ask some questions to the people at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, CA who are in charge of the Mars rover missions. Behind each of the photos I post here has an entire team of engineers, administrators and talented individuals without whom we would never have seen any…
Deimos Rising
Released today, this photo from the HiRISE camera aboard the MRO shows the smooth face of Deimos, Mars’ smaller moon. (Its larger brother is Phobos, also photographed by the HiRISE in 2008.) Its surface is covered by a fine layer of rocky soil, called regolith, which gives it its smooth texture. Deimos is only…
Dark Dunes
Dark-colored sand dunes mark the terrain on Chasma Boreale, a trough that cuts into the north polar ice fields of Mars. These are known as barchan dunes…like their counterparts on Earth, they have steep edges with “horns” that point in the direction of the wind. The dune material could either be dark sand or…
Evening Shadows
A high mesa in the Ganges Chasma region of Mars casts long shadows in the evening sunlight. Actually part of a larger mesa structure rising out of the chasm, itself part of the giant Mariner Valley that slices across Mars, this marbled plateau (seen in contrast-enhancing false color) was photographed by the HiRISE camera…
Lights in the Dark 