Planet Mars: Colorful Bedrock Layers | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Planet Mars: Colorful Bedrock Layers | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Much of Mars’ surface is covered by fine-grained materials that hide the bedrock, but elsewhere, such as in this scene, the bedrock is well exposed (except where covered by sand dunes).

Colors are enhanced in the cutout of a pit exposing reddish layers. 

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured these images.

Local Mars time: 14:13

Latitude (centered): -27.797°

Longitude (East): 203.166°

Spacecraft altitude: 255.2 km (158.6 miles)

MRO is led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California.

For more information, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mro

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/mission/index.html

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

Caption Credit: Alfred McEwen 

Image Date: Jan. 9, 2017

Release Date: Feb. 23, 2017

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Mars #Planet #RedPlanet #Science #Geology #Landscape #Terrain #Geoscience #Bedrock #MRO #Orbiter #Spacecraft #HiRISE #Camera #JPL #Caltech #UniversityOfArizona #BallAerospace #STEM #Education