PIA17647: Gullied Massif in the Nereidum Montes
 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_032522_1345
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA17647.tif (15.56 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA17647.jpg (1.114 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 observation shows a beautiful example of gullies in a massif in Nereidum Montes, located in Argyre Planitia, one of the largest impact basins on Mars.

The purpose of acquiring this full-resolution image of these gullies was to take a closer look at where they are originating from in the massif wall. If we can answer that, we might be able to learn what were the processes that actually formed these gullies. In this particular region, there might be indications of a glacial past.

Nereidum Montes extends approximately 1150 kilometers, and was named by the noted Greek astronomer Eugène Michel Antoniadi (1870-1944).

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:
2013-09-03