Thousands of New Images Show Mars in High Resolution

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(Click to enlarge) This enhanced color image is a detailed close-up taken from a much larger picture (see below left) of gullies at the edge of Hale Crater on Mars. The image was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, or HiRISE, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The HiRISE team is based at the UA. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

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(Click to enlarge) The HiRISE camera aboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this view of gullies near the edge of Hale Crater. Scientists analyze the gullies seen in HiRISE images for ongoing change and insights on possible occurrence of liquid water on the surface of Mars. The HiRISE team is based at the UA. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

By University Communications September 2, 2009

The HiRISE team, based at the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, is releasing thousands of new images of Mars.

Thousands of newly-released images from more than 1,500 telescopic observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a wide range of gullies, dunes, craters, geological layering and other features on the Red Planet.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera on the orbiter recorded these images from April to August of this year. Several featured images are released each week by the camera's operations team at The University of Arizona.

This larger batch release is one of periodic postings of all images from given periods of the mission.

View the new images on the HiRISE Web site.

Each full image from HiRISE covers a strip of Martian ground six kilometers (3.7 miles) wide, about two to four times that long, showing details as small as one meter or yard across.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been studying Mars with an advanced set of instruments since 2006. It has returned more data about the planet than all other past and current missions to Mars combined. More information about the mission is online at NASA's MRO page.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena.  Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the UA and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.