Countdown Nears: Final Tests

Shalbatana Vallis is a large channel with steep walls and a flat floor that may have formed by water draining from nearby Ganges Chasma. Here a section of the wall collapsed and produced a landslid...

This image shows the transitional terrain where the linear troughs and rounded pits of an area called "Noctis Labyrinthus" merge with the larger canyon of "Valles Marineris." Unusual bright blocks ...

This image shows part of the surface of Chryse Planitia, near the mouth of several of the giant outflow channels carved by massive floods. At this location the channel is much too large to be seen ...

The Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been taking images of Mars since 2006. This animation shows, at one frame per month, how these observations have accumulated to cover mo...

This image, acquired by NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows a new impact crater that has appeared on the surface of Mars, formed at most between September 2016 and February 2019.

These long, smooth features are sand ridges shaped by the constant martian wind. They run perpendicular, or at right angles to, the direction of the wind and often found in channels and crater inte...

This feature has a strange appearance, as if the crater has feet with toes sticking out of two sides. Let's try to explain this.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped this series of false-color pictures of sand dunes in the north polar region of Mars

These color-enhanced views of Deimos, the smaller of the two moons of Mars, were taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Martian gullies as seen from HiRISE on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter resemble gullies on Earth that are carved by liquid water. However, when they are observed with the addition of mineralogic...

From one side of the country to the other, through a snowstorm and other delays, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter made its way to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final processing and rehearsals ...

This global map of Mars was acquired on Aug. 2, 2012, by the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Artist's concept of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter near Mars.

Images like this from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show portions of the Martian surface in unprecedented detail. 

This image, acquired on January 2, 2014, by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows dune fields located among canyon wall slopes.

NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

Tantalus Fossae are a set of faults on the eastern flank of Alba Mons, one of the great Tharsis Montes volcanoes. Here a fault cuts into this crater, indicating that the fault formed after the crat...

This series of images shows warm-season features that might be evidence of salty liquid water active on Mars today.

This image covers plains near Aureum Chaos.

This artist's concept of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter features the spacecraft's main bus facing down, toward the red planet.

These images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show how the appearance of dark markings on Martian slope changes with the sea...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in December 2015, at examples of the Bagnold Dunes.

This image reveals exposed layers in Noctis Labyrinthus which may contain signatures of iron bearing sulfates and phyllosilcate (clay) minerals.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been observing Mars since 2006, enabling it to document many types of changes, such as the way winds alter the appearance of this recent impact site. The orbi...

Mars has extremely large temperature changes from winter to summer compared to the Earth. It gets cold enough to freeze carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere during the winter, but this ice is unsta...