Planet Mars: "Once Upon a Martian Lake" | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Planet Mars: "Once Upon a Martian Lake" | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

While there was not much by way of science rationale for this observation, Terra Sirenum is a large area of Mars in the Southern Hemisphere and is believed to have once held a lake that eventually drained through Ma’adim Vallis. The THEMIS instrument on the Mars Odyssey orbiter has detected evidence of chloride-based minerals dated well over 3.5 billion years. This image shows some lighter-toned bedrock that may represent these minerals.

This is a non-narrated clip with ambient sound. Enhanced color image is less than 1 km (under 1 mi) across and the spacecraft altitude was 255 km (158 mi).

Technical details:

Latitude (centered)

-31.564°

Longitude (East)

180.965°

Image Acquisition date

July 7, 2022

Spacecraft altitude

254.7 km (158.3 miles)

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument, that 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: 4 minutes

Release Date: Jan. 16, 2024

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