The surface of Mars is the best place to be if you’re looking for tranquility and natural beauty in a quiet setting. Long known as the “red planet,” Mars can actually display a spectrum of colors thanks to the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
HiRISE has been taking beautiful and scientifically useful pictures of Mars for 10 years. Its photos are so clear that scientists can look at the planet’s features on a scale of just a few feet. They can even see where Europe’s Schiaparelli Mars lander recently crashed.
We looked through 2,054 of the camera’s most recent pictures, which were released in August, September, and October, to find the best ones for you.
A large chasm:
Some dark, rust-colored dunes in Russell Crater:
NASA might land its next nuclear-powered Mars 2020 rover mission here.
The black splotch is where the European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli Mars lander crashed. The white specks, pointed out with arrows, are pieces of the lander.
Zebra skin. Just kidding, this is a dune field that’s speckled with oval-shaped mineral deposits:
A crater on Arcadia Planitia, a large flat region of Mars:
Layers in Martian buttes found in a region called West Arabia:
Source: https://theancientzen.com
