Mars: Dry Ice and Dunes

This image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows gullies near the edge of Hale crater on southern Mars. The view covers an ...

Impact cratering and erosion combine to reveal the composition of the Martian underground by exposing materials from the subsurface.

The Global CTX Mosaic of Mars allows scientists and the public to explore the planet like never before. 

The Mars Climate Sounder, an instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter designed to monitor daily changes in the global atmosphere of Mars, made its first observations of Mars on March 24, 2006.

This HiRISE image shows gullies on a south-facing slope of a crater touched with late-Spring carbon dioxide frost. At this time of year, only the south-facing slopes of craters retain their frost, ...

This DLE [double layer ejecta] crater formed at the edge of an older/pre-existing crater, the rim of which deflected some of its ejecta.

Dark narrow streaks, called "recurring slope lineae," emanate from the walls of Garni Crater on Mars, in this view constructed from observations by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (H...

This photograph from Shiprock in northwestern New Mexico shows a ridge roughly 30 feet (about 10 meters) tall that formed from lava filling an underground fracture then resisting erosion better tha...

This image shows an example of layers in the Martian north polar deposits. These deposits, part of the Planum Boreum dome, are composed mainly of water ice and small amounts of dust.

A towering dust devil casts a serpentine shadow over the Martian surface in this image acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Details such as the shadow of the mast on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity appear in an image taken Aug. 17, 2012, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconn...

This image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows spider-like formations at the Martian South Pole. They form when heating from the springtime Sun causes carbon dioxide beneath the surface t...

This view of an inverted crater in the Arabia Terra region of Mars is among the images taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in early 2010 as the spacecraft approached the 100-terabit milesto...

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Manager Jim Graf shakes the hand of Andrew Dantzler, Director of NASA's Solar System Division, after a successful orbit insertion on March 10, 2006. Fuk Li, Dire...

More evidence of a dynamic Mars is revealed at the edge of a martian dune field.

This animation flips back and forth between views taken in 2010 and 2014 of a Martian sand dune at the edge of Mount Sharp, documenting dune activity. The images are from the HiRISE camera on NASA'...

Tantalus Fossae are a set of faults on the eastern flank of Alba Mons, one of the great Tharsis Montes volcanoes. Here a fault cuts into this crater, indicating that the fault formed after the crat...

Images acquired Jan. 9, 2022, from the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter were combined to create this view showing the presence of a regional dust storm obscuring t...

The Mars Color Imager (MARCI) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired a seven-band color, wide-angle view of Mars on March 24, 2006, as part of a checkout of the orbiter's payload. Th...

These dunes may be active today, but we haven't yet observed them at significantly different times to measure the movement.

This image shows dunes near the north pole of Mars. The north pole is surrounded by a vast "sea" of basaltic sand dunes, and the dunes imaged here are similar to barchan dunes that are commonly fo...

This graphic illustrates where Mars mineral-mapping from orbit has detected minerals that can indicate where a volcano erupted beneath an ice sheet. The site is far from any ice sheet on modern Mar...

Collapsing Volcano; Edge of Olympus Mons

These collapse pits probably formed when lava erupted from the side of Arsia Mons, draining underground magma reservoirs. The resulting voids collapse due to the weight of the solid lava above them...

This HiRISE image covers the southwest portion of the terraces and floor of Holden Crater situated in southwest Margaritifer Terra.