NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE Images: July 30, 2014

– Water-Bearing Rocks in Noctis Labyrinthus http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_036598_1735

Many of the depressions in Noctis Labyrinthus contain water-bearing minerals, suggesting that water was available and persistent in this region in the ancient past.

– Preserving Ice from a Vanished Terrain http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_036598_1735

This image shows a pedestal crater, so-named because the level of the surface adjacent to the crater is elevated relative to the surface of the surrounding terrain.

– Frosty Gullies http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_037137_1360

HiRISE monitoring has shown that gully formation on Mars occurs in winter and early spring in times and places with frost on the ground.

– Layers and Sand on the Floor of Schiaparelli Crater http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_037161_1785

One interpretation of this region is that actively-moving sand kicks off the loose dust so we can see the hardened dust.

All of the HiRISE images are archived here: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/

Information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is online at http://www.nasa.gov/mro. The mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, of Denver, is the prime contractor and built the spacecraft. HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., of Boulder, Colo., built the HiRISE instrument.