the beauty of Mars

[tectonite]

There are spectacular photos of Mars coming back from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter these days. (You may have seen the image from the cover of Science this week, showing a landscape that could easily be Utah.) The images are actually available from NASA on a clickable map. Always been curious about gullies in Noctus Labyrinthus? Well, they're

Comments

[fictualities]

Wow. Thanks for these links. My brain really did start to process the first image as if it were from Utah or someplace like that, and then I thought, oh, MARS.

[tectonite]

The images really are amazing. In some ways, Mars must look a lot like Utah (or a Utah without plants and with a cold, weak sun). I want to look through all the images now -- every one I've seen is really amazing. But mostly I want to know whether fractures like the ones on the cover of Science are visible in any other images; the fracture patterns would provide a really cool way to test ideas about Martian tectonics.

(Some of the pictures have been processed so you can look at them in 3D... I need to pull out my stash of 3D glasses and stare at them for a while.)

NASA is taking public requests for places to photograph, too.