Mars: Colors of the Undiscovered Country | NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Mars: Colors of the Undiscovered Country | NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Nili Fossae is one of our favorite places to image due to the incredibly dense terrain here where clays have been detected. For this reason, Nili Fossae has long been on the short-list for potential landings for robotic exploration. However, this image shows us how rugged (and dangerous) the landscape can be. We acquired this image to study the diverse mineralogy and gain HiRISE coverage over existing high-resolution CRISM data. (CRISM is a spectrometer also onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.)

This clip features the center swath of the full observation, utilizing the infrared-red-blue (IRB) filter of the HiRISE camera. Enhanced color can help us see details that we do not otherwise view in black and white. It would not appear like to this to our eyes if we were there.

This is a non-narrated clip with ambient sound. Image is less than 1 km (under one mile) across and the spacecraft altitude was 282 km (175 mi).

These images were acquired on April 28, 2022, by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) at an altitude of 281 km from the planet's surface. The image is less than 1 km across. 

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument, 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 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.

Video Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Duration: 3 minutes, 42 seconds

Release Date: July 18, 2023 

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