This view shows color variations in bright layered deposits on a plateau near Juventae Chasma in the Valles Marineris region of Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
(PhysOrg.com) -- Martian landforms shaped by winds, water, lava flow, seasonal icing and other forces are analyzed in 21 journal reports based on data from a camera orbiting Mars.
This combination of images helped researchers analyze the youngest flood lava on Mars, which is in Athabasca Valles, in the Elysium Planitia region of equatorial Mars. On the left, color coding indicates relative elevation, based on three-dimensional modeling from stereo pairs of images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The scale bar is 1 kilometer (0.62 mile). The reference key to the color coding is in meters relative to a zero index altitude for Mars (negative numbers, so lower elevations than the zero index). The range from highest (red) to lowest (dark blue) is about 170 meters (558 feet). The labels "A" and "B" indicate the locations of the two images on the right. The images on the right are made from stereo-paired HiRISE observations and appear three dimensional when viewed through red-blue glasses. The features evident here are "phreatovolcanic cones" related to lava-water interactions. They can be used as indicators of where the lava flowed. The difference in elevation between "A" and "B" is more than 100 meters (328 feet), so the lava flow reached a peak depth of more than 100 meters in this area. It is also interesting that the cones are small where the lava was thin (B) and big where the lave was deeper (A). The scale bars are 50 meters (164 feet). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
-- Valleys associated with light-toned layered deposits in several locations along the plateaus adjacent to the largest canyon system on Mars suggest low-temperature alteration of volcanic rocks by acidic water both before and after formation of the canyons.
-- The youngest flood-lava flow on Mars, found in the Elysium Planitia region and covering an area the size of Oregon, is the product of a single eruption and was put in place turbulently over a span of several weeks at most.
-- New details are observed in how seasonal vanishing of carbon-dioxide ice sheets in far-southern latitudes imprints the ground with fan-shaped and spider-shaped patterns via venting of carbon-dioxide gas from the undersurface of the ice.
Scrutiny by NASA's newest Mars orbiter is helping scientists learn the stories of some of the weirdest landscapes on Mars, as well as more familiar-looking parts of the Red Planet.
The High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has confirmed that a dark pit seen on Mars in an earlier HiRISE image really is a vertical shaft that cuts through ...
Thousands of newly released images from more than 1,500 telescopic observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a wide range of gullies, dunes, craters, geological layering and other features on ...
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed hundreds of small fractures exposed on the Martian surface that billions of years ago directed flows of water through underground Martian sandstone. ...
(PhysOrg.com) -- Winter images of NASA's Phoenix Lander showing the lander shrouded in dry-ice frost on Mars have been captured with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera, aboard ...
(Phys.org) —A team of researchers from the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, and the space robotics company Honeybee Robotics, has successfully completed a first series of field ...
(Phys.org) —NASA's senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is driving to a new study area after a dramatic finish to 20 months on "Cape York" with examination of a rock intensely altered by water.
On 5:24 a.m. EDT on May 17, 2013, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection or CME, a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space that can reach Earth ...
While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited Earth's moon for three days in December 1972, they drove their mission's Lunar Roving Vehicle 19.3 nautical miles (22.210 statute miles ...
For the past 8 years, NASA astronomers have been monitoring the Moon for signs of explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. "Lunar meteor showers" have turned out to be more common than anyone ...
(Phys.org) —NASA's senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is driving to a new study area after a dramatic finish to 20 months on "Cape York" with examination of a rock intensely altered by water.
Johnny Cash may have preferred this galaxy's burning ring of fire to the one he sang about falling into in his popular song. The "starburst ring" seen at center in red and yellow hues is not the product of ...
(Phys.org) —A team of researchers from the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, and the space robotics company Honeybee Robotics, has successfully completed a first series of field ...
A comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed articles on the topic of global warming and climate change has revealed an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is human-caused.
(Phys.org) —We all know that the Earth rotates beneath our feet, but new research from ANU has revealed that the center of the Earth is out of sync with the rest of the planet, frequently speeding up and ...
Regular consumption of coffee is associated with a reduced risk of primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), an autoimmune liver disease, Mayo Clinic research shows. The findings were being presented at the Digestive Disease ...
Patients with treatment-resistant major depression saw dramatic improvement in their illness after treatment with ketamine, an anesthetic, according to the largest ketamine clinical trial to-date led by researchers from the ...
There are significant cost and risk factors associated with two procedures commonly used to diagnose or treat gastrointestinal problems, according to research presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW).
The use of a smartphone application significantly improves patients' preparation for a colonoscopy, according to new research presented today at Digestive Disease Week (DDW). The preparation process, which begins days in ...
Explore further:
NASA's STEREO detects a CME from the sun
