Ever since mankind has been aware of it, the planet Mars has been our solar system's chief object of wonder, mystery and sci-fi suspicion. The so-called "red planet" had a fiery reputation that lasted until we began to learn the far less shocking truth: Mars is a barren, dead planet, and no Martians with ray guns live there. Still, though, the planet has much to teach us about how a once-alive planet dies, and the mystery of what the old Mars looked like continues to intrigue scientists and amateur astronomers alike. In this gallery, we'll take a closer look at the fourth rock from the sun.
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Here we see why Mars is commonly referred to as the red planet. An image of Mars that was taken from NASA's Hubble space telescope is featured on the next page.
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This image of Mars was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. To see pictures of the surface of Mars, check out the next few pages.
Image Credit: Photo courtesy NASA, Steve Lee University of Colorado, Jim Bell Cornell University,
Today's Martians must need super-strength vacuum cleaners. Here we see an enormous Martian dust devil casting a shadow over the surface of the planet in this image acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The view covers an area about four-tenths of a mile (644 meters) across. North is toward the top. The length of the whirlwind's shadow indicates that the dust plume reaches more than half a mile (800 meters) into the air. The plume is about 105 feet (32meters) in diameter.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
High resolution shot of Valles Marineris. On the next page you can see a detailed image of how Valles Marineris cuts through the surface of Mars.
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Valles Marineris cuts through the surface of Mars. To see other features on the surface of Mars, check out the next page.
Image Credit: NASA/Arizona State Universita via Getty Images
A channel, Reull Vallis, on the surface of Mars that was once formed by flowing water. Have you ever wondered what Martian soil looks like up close? Check out the next page to see what it looks like.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum) via Getty Images
A rover from NASA took this picture of the Martian soil. On the next page, get a look at the desolate Martian landscape as seen by another rover.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/US Geological Survey via Getty Images
The second Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, sent back these breathtaking photos. Another image of the Martian surface is featured on the next page.
The first color image of Mars taken by the Mars Exploration Rover, Spirit.
Image Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Cornell University via Getty Images
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this color image in 2011, of Santa Maria Crater. The arrow toward the lower-right shows NASA's rover Opportunity perched on the southeast rim of the crater. Opportunity has been studying this relatively new, 90-meter-diameter (295-foot) crater to help scientists understand more about how crater excavation occurred during the impact and how it has been modified by weathering and erosion since.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
In this image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the dark branched features in the floor of Antoniadi Crater look like giant ferns or fern casts. But these ferns would be several miles in size and are made up of rocky materials. It's probable that the "ferns" represent a channel network that now stands in inverted relief. The channels may have been lined or filled by hardened materials, making the channel fill area more resistant to erosion by the wind than the surrounding materials. After probably billions of years of wind erosion, these resistant channels are now relatively high-standing.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
The Mars rovers were designed to navigate the rough terrain of the Red Planet.
Image Credit: Image courtesy NASA
This image of Mars comes from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Odyssey has completed an unprecedented full 10 years of observing Mars from orbit. Its journey began back on February 19, 2002. The camera has orbited Mars almost 45,000 times since then, and it has taken more than half a million images at infrared and visible wavelengths.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Here we see dunes of sand-sized material that have been trapped on the floor of many Martian craters. This example comes from a crater in what NASA calls Noachis Terra, west of a giant impact basin called Hellas. The linear arrangement of the dunes is thought to be due to shifting wind directions. Large boulders are strewn on the floor between the dunes.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Sure, it might look like a severely dented baking potato, but we're actually looking at Phobos, the largest of the two moons that orbit Mars. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took two images of Phobos, and this was the first, taken from a distance of about 4,200 miles (6,800 kilometers). Its most prominent feature is the large crater, called Stickney, in the lower right. With a diameter of 5.6 miles (9 kilometers), it's the largest geological feature on Phobos. Next, we'll look at the other, smaller moon around Mars -- Deimos.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Deimos is the smaller of the two moons circling Mars. It's only about 9 miles (15 kilometers) across, and it whirls around the red planet every 30 hours. Like Phobos, Deimos is certainly another strange potato: small, lumpy and heavily cratered.
Image Credit: NASA
This image is from early spring in the northern polar dunes of Mars. The dunes are covered with a layer of seasonal carbon dioxide ice (i.e., dry ice), with blue-tinted cracks visible across the top of some of the dunes. The dark, fan-shaped deposits around the edges of the dunes indicate spots where the ice has sublimated (meaning it has gone from ice to gas) and the ice layer has ruptured, allowing the sand from the dune to escape out from under the ice. The sand is then free to be blown by the wind. Next, we'll visit a Martian crater that has an interesting feature.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA
Gale Crater boasts a mountain rising from its floor. This view is an artist's impression, using two-fold vertical exaggeration to better demonstrate the topography of the area. The crater's diameter is 96 miles (154 kilometers), and it's where the rover Curiosity, from NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, will land in August of 2012.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS
This computer-generated view shows part of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight, with an area (including Gale Crater, from our last picture) just starting to shine with morning light. Gale Crater is distinct from adjacent craters, thanks to its central mountain. The Curiosity mission's rover will be placed on the ground in a northern portion of the crater. Get a peek at the Curiosity rover itself in the next image.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This artist's rendering shows the Curiosity rover landing on Mars. What NASA terms the entry, descent and landing (EDL) phase of the Mars Science Laboratory mission starts when the spacecraft reaches the Martian atmosphere, about 81 miles (131 kilometers) above the surface of Gale Crater. It ends with the rover safe and in good working condition on the Martian surface. Instead of the now-familiar airbag landing systems of previous Mars missions, the Mars Science Laboratory will use guided entry and a sky crane landing system to set to ground the enormous rover (it weighs more than 1 ton, or 900 kilograms). Next, we'll have a look at a piece of the Martian landscape that caused quite a stir in the mid-1970s when images of it were first seen by the public.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Here we see the infamous "face on Mars," taken by the Viking I orbiter in 1976. When it hit the news, popular culture, of course, ran with it. For many, the image just looked too human -- or humanoid! -- to be a random geologic feature. The state-of-the-art imaging we take for granted today wasn't available in the 1970s, so the grainy, low-res photo made it easy for imaginations to run wild. Next, we'll see a much more contemporary shot of the same "face," which may be a letdown to any last remaining holdouts clinging to the idea that the face was made by ancient Martian hands.
Image Credit: NASA
The Mars Global Surveyor project in 1998 released a close-up image of an area about two miles (3.2 kilometers) wide. The rock formation shown here is the same "face on Mars" that ignited the imagination in 1976 with the Viking orbiter images. The newer imaging system helped show the formation as it really was, in its decidedly less humanoid form. Such complex looking landforms in that region of Mars are thought to be the result of erosion and weathering of ancient crust by Martian winds, frost and possibly surface water. Now that we've seen the true face of Mars, let's take a look at the red planet's "Big Joe."
Image Credit: Mars Global Surveyor Project, NASA
This image was acquired at the Viking Lander 1 site. The large rock just to the left of center is about 6.5 feet (2 meters) wide and was named "Big Joe" by the Viking scientists. The portions of the rock that are not covered with red soil are similar in color to basaltic rocks we see on Earth. Therefore, it's thought that Big Joe might be a fragment of a lava flow that was ejected by an impact crater.
Image Credit: Mary A. Dale-Bannister, Washington Univ. in St. Louis.
Here we get an orbiter's-eye view of a Martian dust storm. Early spring typically brings dust storms to the northern polar surface of the planet. That's because the north polar cap begins to thaw in spring, and the temperature difference between the cold frost region and the recently thawed surface results in swirling winds. The choppy dust clouds of at least three dust storms are visible in this mosaic of images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in 2002. The white polar cap is frozen carbon dioxide.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
On July 4, 1997, NASA's Pathfinder Mission spacecraft landed on Mars. It dispatched this small rover called Sojourner. Controlled from Earth, the plucky rover lasted much longer than planned. It was supposed to be operational for about a month, but instead it kept busy for almost three months. Its American Independence Day landing, and the subsequent images it transmitted of the Martian landscape, caused a sensation back on its home planet Earth.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL
This picture shows the Sojourner hard at work using its X-ray spectrometer on a rock the NASA team called "Moe." Next we'll see another Martian dust storm that's just plain enormous.
Image Credit: NASA
This image of Mars was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Right in the center of the picture is the red planet's polar ice cap. To the upper left of the ice cap is a tiny white dot, which is the NASA Phoenix lander's landing site. Further down, counter-clockwise, is a dust storm covering nearly 23,000 square miles (37,000 square kilometers).
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
In this image of a NASA rover on Mars, the piece of metal with the American flag on it is made of aluminum that was recovered from New York's World Trade Center, in the weeks after it was destroyed by terrorists in 2001. The piece serves as a cable guard for the rock abrasion tool on the Spirit rover, as well as a memorial to the thousands of victims of the September 11 attacks. An identical piece is on the twin rover Opportunity.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University
Fitting for our final image, here we see a low-light, late-afternoon shot on Mars. It was taken by the rover Opportunity's panoramic camera. For a supposedly angry red planet, Mars certainly has its charms.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.
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