Planet Mars: Bedrock of Ages | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Planet Mars: Bedrock of Ages | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

We obtained this image for its terrific texture diversity and to extend our coverage of the area. There are clays mixed with unaltered mafics here. This terrain originates in the Noachian period of Mars, about 3 to 4 billion years ago. In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust of a planet.

This is a non-narrated clip with ambient sound. The cutout is less than 5 km (3 mi) across and the spacecraft altitude was 279 km (173 mi).

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to study the geology and climate of Mars, to provide reconnaissance of future landing sites, and to relay data from surface missions back to Earth. It was launched on August 12, 2005, and reached Mars on March 10, 2006. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Duration: 3 minutes, 32 seconds

Release Date: Jan. 11, 2023

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