PIA25709: A Bear on Mars?
 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_076769_1380
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA25709.tif (8.108 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA25709.jpg (1.166 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:

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Map Projected Browse Image
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This feature looks a bit like a bear's face. What is it really?

There's a hill with a V-shaped collapse structure (the nose), two craters (the eyes), and a circular fracture pattern (the head). The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater. Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows?

Maybe just grin and bear it. (Check out the stereo anaglyph!)

The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. (The original image scale is 26.0 centimeters [10.2 inches] per pixel [with 1 x 1 binning]; objects on the order of 78 centimeters [30.7 inches] across are resolved.) North is up.

This is a stereo pair with ESP_076347_1380.

The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. 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/University of Arizona

Image Addition Date:
2023-01-31