What's New

Astronomers funded by NASA are monitoring the trajectory of an asteroid estimated to be 50 meters (164 feet) wide that is expected to cross Mars' orbital path early next year.
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This is a special day that happens only every 26 months when Earth is exactly between the Sun and Mars. Find out more about opposition and experiment with Mars and Earth in their orbits.
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Scrutiny by NASA's newest Mars orbiter is helping scientists learn the stories of some of the weirdest landscapes on Mars, as well as more familiar-looking parts of the Red Planet.
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Explore the HiRISE Web site | Read about the classroom program

Conspicuous dark streaks atop icy dunes on Mars allure scientists and non-scientists, yet their origin remains a mystery. Perhaps they are small avalanches or patches of sand covered by a thin veneer of ice. Perhaps they formed when cold gas jets of evaporating ice spewed dust onto the surface.

Imagine being able to point a camera at such features from 60 million miles away! Students in Budapest, Hungary effectively did that, selecting this site for observation from orbit through a program that invites the public to help NASA select targets for imaging on Mars.
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into a safe standby mode Wed., Nov. 7, after the on-board computer detected that one of the solar panels was moving slower than had been commanded. Update on Nov. 16, 2008: The flight team for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has put the spacecraft back into operations. Science instruments have been powered up, and observations of Mars have resumed.
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Scientists scouting potential landing sites for NASA's next Mars rover mission are using new data from a powerful mineral-mapping camera to narrow the site selection.
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Dazzled by the beauty of the strange features in the Athabasca Valles channel system on Mars, geologist Windy Jaeger pondered their origin. In a new paper, she concludes that lava filled the channel system to the brim and then drained away leaving a thin coating of hard lava rock to preserve the underlying landscape. Other unique features indicating that massive lava flows once filled the channels are hydrovolcanic cones that formed when water met lava and boiled explosively, leaving behind small, conical and ring-shaped features visible in and around the dune field (upper left).
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Less than a year since beginning the prime science phase of its mission, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has passed a mission-success milestone for the amount of data returned.
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is examining several features on Mars that address the role of water at different times in Martian history.
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft engineers are considering rolling the spacecraft to allow scientists a better view of polar rock layering.
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The High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) has confirmed that a dark pit seen on Mars in an earlier HiRISE image really is a vertical shaft that cuts through lava flow on the flank of the Arsia Mons volcano. Such pits form on similar volcanoes in Hawaii and are called "pit craters."
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Diagnostic tests and months of stable, successful operation have resolved concerns raised early this year about long-term prospects for the powerful telescopic camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter resumed normal operations on July 24, with all instruments operating and gathering data.
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Engineers are gathering and analyzing engineering data to understand the cause of a software error between NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and one of its instruments.
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Full Image

CRISM View is a first-of-its-kind opportunity to watch Mars through the "eyes" of the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) - as if you were riding along with it on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter!

The team operating the mineral-mapping camera (CRISM) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter offers Web users a simulated view, in real time, of what part of Mars the instrument is seeing as it orbits the planet. The viewer is based on the application that team members use to monitor their instrument.
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As engineers and scientists anticipate the Opportunity rover's long-awaited descent into "Victoria Crater," they have a bird's-eye view thanks to the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Opportunity's tracks decorate the edge of Victoria Crater like a constellation in our night sky. These tracks represent nearly a year's worth of investigation to characterize the massive depression before deciding whether or not to enter.

Plans are to take a dip into the crater around the second week of July and then proceed down, if driving conditions are favorable.
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is an overachiever! About six months into its science-gathering phase and the orbiter has already returned 11 Terabits of data – that’s enough to fill over 2,000 CDs!
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Full Image and Caption

Erosion has exposed light-toned, layered rocks on the northern rim of Hellas Basin, the largest impact crater on Mars. Details in the layering seen in this image from the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment reveal variations in brightness that may indicate differing mineralogies.
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into safe mode -- a precautionary status with minimized activities -- on March 14. It remained healthy and in communication with Earth, but with no science observations, while the flight team examined engineering data. On March 20, the team brought the spacecraft back out of safe mode.
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The CRISM and HiRISE instruments have given the orbiter's science team and the public much to celebrate as they show us Mars in unprecedented detail.
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Reaching its first 100 days of operations, the powerful mineral-detector aboard the newest satellite to circle Mars is changing the way scientists view the history of water on the red planet.
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Liquid or gas flowed through cracks penetrating underground rock on ancient Mars, according to a report based on some of the first observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. These fluids may have produced conditions to support possible habitats for microbial life.
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft this month is set to surpass the record for the most science data returned by any Mars spacecraft. While the mission continues to produce data at record levels, engineers are examining why two instruments are intermittently not performing entirely as planned. All other spacecraft instruments are operating normally and continue to return science data.
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Using the high-resolution camera, visual clues such as peaks and craters seen in earlier images, and old-fashioned detective skills, scientists were able to identify the 1997 Pathfinder mission within a vast landscape of seemingly homogenous Martian terrain.
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