Mars: Slipping & Sliding in Echus Chaos | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Mars: Slipping & Sliding in Echus Chaos | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Echus Chaos is a region of low hills located between Lunae Planum (to the right of this image) and Echus Palus (to the left of this image). This chaos terrain may have formed as the rocks that make up Lunae Planum slowly slid downhill into Echus Palus.

As these rocks slid downhill, they broke up into large pieces that formed the hills that we see today. What caused this landslide is not well known, but it could have been due to large floods of water moving through Echus Palus, causing the edge of Lunae Planum to become soaked and fall apart. Ground shaking from movement along nearby faults or meteorite impacts may have also helped to make the edge of Lunae Planum unstable and collapse.

Black and white images are less than 5 km across; enhanced color is less than 1 km. 

This image was taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument.

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. 

Image Date: May 18, 2012

Latitude (centered): 8.838°

Longitude (East): 285.140°

Spacecraft altitude: 271.3 km (168.6 miles)

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/UArizona

Narration: Tre Gibbs

Caption Credit: Chris Okubo

Duration: 1 minute, 7 seconds

Release Date: Aug. 9, 2023

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