NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE Images – October 26, 2011

– Continuing Avalanches http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_016228_2650

What triggers these falls? Seasonal temperature changes in the ice layers, gusts of wind passing over loosened rocks in steep slopes, or something else entirely?

– Rafting Rocks http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_023314_1440

In this image, It looks as if a flat solid surface broke up, and then the individual pieces were rafted apart.

– Diverse Layers and Mineralogy near Mawrth Vallis http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_024055_2045

Clays contain water, indicating that this region may have been wet in the past.

– Gullies on the South Wall of Dao Vallis near the Confluence with Niger Vallis http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_024315_1435

This valley fill material was likely ice-rich and flowed down the wall or valley similar to slow moving glacial material on Earth.

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.