Catalog Page for PIA17982

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PIA17982: Which Came First, the Yardang or the Platy Flow?

One of the great strengths of the HiRISE camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is that its high resolution can help resolve interesting questions. Here, is the platy flow material younger than the yardang-forming material?

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_034255_1840
Full-Res TIFF:	PIA17982.tif (15.56 MB)
Full-Res JPEG:	PIA17982.jpg (895.9 kB)

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

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One of the great strengths of HiRISE is that its high resolution can help resolve interesting questions: in this observation, is the platy flow material younger than the yardang-forming material?

A "yardang" is a streamlined hill made of loose rock and bedrock that's been shaped by wind erosion. The volcanic platy flow material in the same area should be older than the yardang material. The purpose of this observation is to figure out whether the platy flow materials trap or catch (embay) the yardang-forming material, or are just covered by that material.

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:

2014-02-13