Mars: Gullies - Northwest Rim of Hale Crater | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Mars: Gullies - Northwest Rim of Hale Crater | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

This image covers part of the northwest rim of Hale Crater on Mars. Gullies have formed down the interior rim of the crater in this location.

Bright material deposits are evident along the walls of certain gullies. These deposits might be the result of transport or exposure of finer-grained sediments, variations in the brightness of dust or materials, or the presence of ice or fresh deposits within the gullies.

Image cutout is less than 1 km (under 1 mi) across and the spacecraft altitude was 255 km (159 mi). 

While the origin of these gullies is not clear, several have attributes similar to their counterparts on the Earth that result from flowing water. These include upper regions where gully tributaries have eroded into the source rocks, sinuous or “snake-like” channel middle reaches, and down slope regions where gullies distribute and terminate in deposits of sediment and debris.

Bright material deposits are evident along the walls of some gullies. These deposits might be the result of transport or exposure of finer-grained sediments, variations in the brightness of dust or materials, or the presence of ice or fresh deposits within the gullies.

Hale is an elliptical-shaped crater, approximately 150 by 125 kilometers, just north of the Argyre Basin.

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

Latitude (centered): -35.093°

Longitude (East): 322.414°

Spacecraft altitude: 255.2 km (158.6 miles)

More About MRO

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages MRO for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Caltech, in Pasadena, manages JPL for NASA. The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. The Context Camera was built by, and is operated by, Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego.

For more information on MRO, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mro

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

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

Image Date: July 28, 2009

Caption Credit: Shawn D. Hart and Ginny Gulick 

Release Date: Oct. 24, 2023

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