Planet Mars: A Dune Field near Nili Patera | NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Planet Mars: A Dune Field near Nili Patera | NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

The orientation of these dunes tell us the direction of the prevailing wind. This image was acquired on Sept. 29, 2018, by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument at an altitude of 270.5 km from the planet's surface. Black and white images are 5 km across; enhanced color images are 1 km.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. 

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

“For 17 years, MRO has been revealing Mars to us as no one had seen it before,” said the mission’s project scientist, Rich Zurek of JPL.

Image Data:

Latitude (centered)

8.714°

Longitude (East)

67.348°

Local Mars time

14:49

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Narration: Tre Gibbs

Duration: 49 seconds

Release Date: Feb. 6, 2019

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