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PIA17625: Enigmatic Channels on the Floor of Mangala Valles
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
 Spacecraft:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
 Instrument:  HiRISE
 Product Size:  2880 x 1800 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  University of Arizona/HiRISE-LPL
 Other  
Information: 
Other products from image ESP_033264_1640
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA17625.tif (15.56 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA17625.jpg (1.052 MB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This particular area, called Mangala Valles and located near the Tharsis region, may be an example of the action of liquid water in the ancient Martian past.

It's possible that the wide and short channels visible here may have formed by the motion of groundwater, similar to way channels like these form on Earth.

HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the orbiter's HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Image Addition Date:
2013-10-30