NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been flying our the red planet for the last 20 years, beaming back images of its surface captured by its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.
This week, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which oversees Mars missions, shared the 100,000th image taken by HiRISE and posted it along with a selection of other Mars images snapped by the camera over the last two decades.
You can see them in the post below.
The remarkable images include everything from impact craters and sand dunes to ice deposits and even potential landing sites for future human missions. It’s worth noting that many HiRISE images don’t show Mars’ expected reddish hue because color processing balances the surface tones with the camera’s blue-green and infrared bands.
The 100,000th image, which we’ve embedded at the top of this page, was captured in October and shows mesas (flat-topped hills or plateaus with steep sides) and dunes within Syrtis Major, a region about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Jezero Crater, which is currently being explored by NASA’s Perseverance rover.
Scientists are now analyzing the image in a bid to better understand the source of windblown sand that gets trapped in the region’s landscape, and which eventually form dunes.
“HiRISE hasn’t just discovered how different the Martian surface is from Earth, it’s also shown us how that surface changes over time,” MRO project scientist Leslie Tamppari said on the space agency’s website, adding: “We’ve seen dune fields marching along with the wind and avalanches careening down steep slopes.”
The subject of the milestone image was suggested by a high school student through the HiWish site, which allows anyone to suggest parts of Mars to study.
“Rapid data releases, as well as imaging targets suggested by the broader science community and public, have been a hallmark of HiRISE,” said the camera’s principal investigator, Shane Byrne, of the University of Arizona in Tucson. “One hundred thousand images just like this one have made Mars more familiar and accessible for everyone.”
The MRO has enough fuel to support operations until the mid-2030s, so we can look forward to seeing plenty more stunning images from the spacecraft, giving scientists the chance to learn even more about the distant planet.