Geyser Season on Planet Mars | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
This image from the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captures geysers of gas and dust that occur in springtime in the South Polar region of Mars. As the Sun rises higher in the sky, the thick coating of carbon dioxide ice that accumulated over the winter begins to warm and then turn to vapor. Sunlight penetrates through the transparent ice and is absorbed at the base of the ice layer. The gas that forms because of the warming escapes through weaknesses in the ice and erupts in the form of geysers. They can be seen here blowing out dark, triangle-shaped fans of dust and sand onto the red Martian surface.
HiRISE, or the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, is a powerful camera that takes pictures covering vast areas of Martian terrain while being able to see features as small as a kitchen table.
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.
The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE. It was built by BAE Systems in 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.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/mission/index.html
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Image Date: Oct. 29, 2018
Release Date: Jan. 29, 2025
#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #Planet #RedPlanet #Geology #Landscape #Terrain #Geoscience #Spring #SouthPole #Geysers #CarbonDioxideIce #CarbonDioxideGas #Dust #MRO #MarsOrbiter #MarsSpacecraft #HiRISECamera #JPL #Caltech #BallAerospace #MSSS #UnitedStates #STEM #Education
No comments:
Post a Comment