NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE Imagery Release 26 December 2007
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Onboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the HiRISE camera offers unprecedented image quality, giving us a view of the Red Planet in a way never before seen. It’s the most powerful camera ever to leave Earth’s orbit.
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South Polar Layered Deposits and Residual Ice Cap A wide variety of south polar terrains are on display in this spectacular HiRISE color image. |
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Repeated Erosion and Deposition in the South Polar Layered Deposits These deposits, like the north polar layered deposits, are thought to contain a record of global climate changes on Mars. |
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Crater on the South Polar Layered Deposits An example of “angular unconformity,” where layers do not conform to each other across a boundary. |
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Distorted Layers in the South Polar Layered Deposits What’s striking in this observation is that the layers are not flat-lying, but appear wavy. |
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Impact Crater on the South Polar Layered Deposits Layers in the polar regions are of great interest since they contain records of past planetary conditions. |
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South Polar Layered Deposits Polar layered deposits are interesting because they were probably formed by global climate changes on Mars, like ice ages on Earth. |
