NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE Images March 21, 2012

– Boulders on the Floor of Hellas Basin http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_025688_1355

This image reveals bouldery patches on the floor of the giant Hellas impact basin.

– Mineral Veins http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_025700_2005

The bright linear features cutting the bedrock in the center region of this image look like mineral veins.

– Magical Mystery Mound http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_025729_1305

The contorted material sits on the floor of a degraded impact crater, with some bizarrely grooved textures that show up nicely with the low-sun illumination.

– A Cloudy Day http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_025914_2540

Where the clouds are thin the remaining bright winter ice can be seen protected in shallow grooves on the ground, in addition to covering the dunes.

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.