PIA23374: South America's Altiplano Looks Like Mars
Filled with briny lakes, the Quisquiro salt flat in South America's Altiplano represents the kind of landscape that scientists think may have existed in Gale Crater, which NASA's Curiosity rover is exploring.
 Mission:  Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) 
 Product Size:  1400 x 788 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA23374.tif (2.869 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA23374.jpg (224.2 kB)  

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Original Caption Released with Image:

Filled with briny lakes, the Quisquiro salt flat in South America's Altiplano represents the kind of landscape that scientists think may have existed in Gale Crater, which NASA's Curiosity rover is exploring.

This salt flat is located in Chile, though the Altiplano sprawls across countries. Streams and rivers flowing from mountain ranges into this arid, high-altitude plateau lead to closed basins similar to Mars' ancient Gale Crater. Lakes on the Altiplano are heavily influenced by climate in the same way as Gale.

Image Credit:
Maksym Bocharov

Image Addition Date:
2019-10-07