NASA
This composite panoramic image, captured by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on April 8, 2023, shows the Marker Band Valley colorfully and at different times of the day.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
A bear’s face takes shape on the Martian surface in this new image taken by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Two grooves form the eyes, a circular fracture shapes the face, and a V-shaped slope structure represents the nose.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The Curiosity rover discovered the rock, which resembles a flower or piece of coral, inside Gale Crater on February 24. The small fragments in this photo were formed billions of years ago when minerals carried by water cemented the rock.
JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NASA
NASA’s Curiosity rover took this selfie in front of the 20-foot-tall rock formation “Mont Merco” using two cameras.
JBL-Caltech/NASA
An intelligent helicopter captured this color image of Mars in April 2021 from 16 feet above the planet’s surface. First color image Taken during a flyby by the Rotocraft on Mars.
JBL-Caltech/NASA
This perspective of Mars’ Vals Marineris hemisphere from July 9, 2013 is actually a mosaic made up of 102 Viking Orbiter images. At the center is the Valles Marineris valley system, 2,000 kilometers long and 8 kilometers deep.
JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NASA
This 2016 self-portrait of the Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the Keula Drilling Site in the Murray Buttes region of Mount Sharp.
NASA
This photo of a preserved river channel on Mars, overlaid to show different elevations, was taken by an orbiting satellite. Blue is low and yellow is high.
ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
The European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission captured this 2018 image of the Korolev Crater, more than 50 miles near the North Pole and filled with water ice.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. From Arizona
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter used its HiRISE camera to capture this view of an area with an unusual texture on Gale Crater’s south floor.
NASA
Cooled lava helped preserve the footprint of where the dunes once moved on the southeast side of Mars. But it looks like a “Star Trek” symbol.
JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/NASA
Although Mars is not as geologically active as Earth, surface features are heavily shaped by wind. Wind-carved features called yardangs are common on the Red Planet. On sand, wind creates ripples and small hills. In Mars’ thin atmosphere, light doesn’t scatter much, so the shadows cast by the yardangs are sharp and dark.
JPL-Caltech/Cornell/USGS/NASA
These small hematite-rich concretions were spotted near Fram Crater by NASA’s Opportunity rover in April 2004. Area shown is 1.2 inches across. Color information is added from the rover’s panoramic camera, and the view comes from a microscopic imager on Opportunity’s robotic arm. These minerals suggest that Mars had a watery past.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. From Arizona
This image shows seasonal flows in Valles Marineris on Mars. These Martian landslides appear on the slopes in spring and summer.
JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NASA
Dust storms are known to exist around Mars. These 2001 images from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter show a dramatic change in the planet’s appearance as haze raised by dust storm activity in the south spread globally.
JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NASA
This composite image was taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover in September 2015, looking towards the higher reaches of Mount Sharp. Anteriorly there is a long ridge rich in hematite. Beyond is an undulating plain rich in clay minerals. Beyond that are several rounded bands, all rich in sulfate minerals. The changing mineralogy in these layers indicates a changing environment at the beginning of Mars, although they all exposed water billions of years ago.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
InSight’s seismometer recorded “Marscak” for the first time in April 2019.
JBL-Caltech/NASA
Opportunity captured this 2016 image of a Martian dust devil twisting into the valley below from atop a ridge. The view looks back up the rover’s tracks toward the north-facing slope of Knutsen Ridge, part of the southern rim of Marathon Valley.
JPL-Caltech/Univ. Arizona/NASA
HiRISE captured layered deposits and bright ice at the Martian north pole.
JPL-Caltech/Univ. Arizona/NASA
Nili Patera is the fastest moving region of dunes and ripples on Mars. HRIS, aboard the Mars Orbiter, continues to monitor this region every two months to observe changes in seasonal and annual timescales.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity rover captured the highest-resolution panorama of Mars in late 2019. It contains more than 1,000 images and 1.8 billion pixels.
JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NASA
This image combines data from two instruments aboard NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor to depict an orbital view of Mars’ north polar region. The ice-filled polar cap is 621 miles across, and the dark bands are deep troughs. Right of center, a large valley, the Chasma Boreale, almost bisects the ice sheet. Chasma Boreal is the length of America’s famous Grand Canyon and is up to 1.2 miles deep.
JPL-Caltech/Univ. Arizona/NASA
A dramatic, new impact crater dominates this image taken by the HiRISE camera in November 2013. The crater spans approximately 100 feet and is surrounded by a large, radiating blast zone. Because the terrain where the crater formed is dusty, the new crater appears blue in enhanced color due to the removal of reddish dust in the area.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The dark ridge, known as Irison Hill, is in the Murray Formation beneath Mount Sharp, near where NASA’s Curiosity rover surveyed a linear sand dune in February 2017.
CaSSIS/ESA/Roscosmos
Is there cookies and cream on Mars? No, it’s polar dunes dusted with snow and sand.
MSSS/JPL-Caltech/NASA
The cloud in the center of this image is actually a dust tower that occurred in 2010 and was captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Blue and white clouds of steam.
JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/NASA
In June 2014, HiRISE captured an image of a one-kilometer crater in the southern hemisphere of Mars. Snow falls on all of Mars’ south-facing slopes in late winter as Mars moves toward spring.
JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/NASA
Two large earthquakes detected by NASA’s InSight appear to have originated in a region called Cerberus Fossae on Mars. Scientists have previously detected signs of tectonic activity, including landslides. This image was taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
NASA
This is the first photograph taken from the surface of Mars. It was taken by the Viking 1 lander on July 20, 1976 shortly after it touched down on the planet.
