The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit resumed driving this past Thursday after over two weeks of inactivity at its position northeast of Home Plate. The image above shows a small hill informally known as “Von Braun”, and will be investigated more in the months ahead. Spirit has been behaving erratically this month, resetting itself, forgetting…
Tag: Mars
Focus!
At first glance it may seem as if the University of Arizona’s HiRISE camera needs a little focus adjustment. But notice the few scattered little impact craters and dune ripples in this image and you’ll realize there’s nothing wrong with the focus—it’s the surface of Mars that’s blurry here!
Do You Heart Mars?
Well, Mars hearts you. This 1.25-mile-long crater was photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on February 26, 2008. It lies on the western edge of the Hydaspis Chaos region, an area of jumbled depressions thought to be caused by the sudden release of groundwater. Click to see a larger shot of the area. Other heart-shaped…
Intersection
The sinuous knife edge of three dune ridges connect in this photo from the HiRISE camera aboard the MRO. Click for a higher resolution version…the texture of the surface sand becomes more visible. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Down the RAT Hole
Opportunity takes a moment to survey its recent work: a circular etching made upon an outcropping of rock amongst the dunes of Meridiani Plains. Both rovers are equipped with a robotic arm that holds three important diagnostic tools mounted on a swiveling “fist”. A microscopic imaging camera, a spectrometer and a rock abrasion tool –…
A Fresh Wound
This image from the HiRISE camera on the MRO shows an impact crater that is estimated to have been formed some time between February and July of 2005. This feature is in an equatorial highland region of Mars. The colors here are not true to life…they indicate material composition and density more than actual…
A Tangled Web
Criscrossing the south polar region of Mars, cracks and ridges line the frozen ground, broken by the occasional spray of dark material spewed by a geyser of released subsurface gases. These lines are referred to as “spider troughs” due to their resemblance to cobwebs, as seen from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This image was…
You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
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…
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
Lights in the Dark 