PIA14452: Spiders on Mounds
 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 ESP_046562_1005
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA14452.tif (15.56 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA14452.jpg (1.445 MB)

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This terrain looks like lumpy sediment on top of patterned ground. The lumpy sediment is likely just loosely consolidated because it is covered with spidery channels.

This landform is uniquely Martian, formed in the spring as seasonal dry ice turns directly into gas that erodes channels in the surface.

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

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

Image Addition Date:
2016-12-21