Tilted and broken blocks of rock
seen by Curiosity during its drive to Glenelg.

This color mosaic of nine Mastcam 100 mm images shows an interesting rock formation seen by Curiosity on Sol 39 (September 15, 2012) during its drive to Glenelg.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Mosaic by astroarts.org

Landslide at the 5 km high south wall
of Ganges Chasma.

Although Valles Marineris originated as a tectonic structure, it has been modified by other processes. This image shows a close-up view of a landslide at the 5 km high south wall of Ganges Chasma.
The unnamed impact crater on the plateau, which is a part of Aurorae Planum, is approximately 27 km in diameter. The floor of the crater is smooth and flat, so it seems likely that the interior of this crater has been partly filled with basalts or with sand and dust blown by wind. The landslide partially removed the rim of the crater.
The debris apron appears to have formed by collapse of the slump blocks at the base of the wall and extends about 40 kilometers across the floor of Ganges Chasma.
The landslides in Valles Marineris generally show few meteorite impact craters, and so are quite young; they probably formed in the Amazonian Epoch of Mars’ history, some 1.8 billion years ago.

Viking 1 Orbiter image f014a30, taken on July 4, 1976.
The image covers a length of approximately 60 kilometers.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University/astroarts.org

Color mosaic of the Martian Olympus Mons volcano
and its surrounding plains.

Mosaic of the Martian Olympus Mons volcano and its surrounding plains made from two color composites using the following Viking 1 Orbiter images:
f735a41 and f735a42 (violet), f735a45 and f735a46 (green), f735a47 and f735a48 (red).
These images were taken on June 22, 1978.
The mosaic covers an area of nearly 1,600 x 800 kilometers. North is right and west is up.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University/Mosaic by astroarts.org

Saturn as viewed from Rhea.

This image shows Saturn above Rhea’s horizon and is an artistic combination of the following two images:

• Saturn with the big white storm on its northern hemisphere, taken by the Cassini spacecraft on January 02, 2011, from a mean distance of 2,556,958 kilometers.
  Raw images taken using CB2, GRN and BL1 filters were combined to create this color view.
  The color composite was rotated 180 degrees, cropped, downsized and blurred using Gaussian blur.
• The surface of Saturn’s moon Rhea, taken by the Cassini spacecraft on January 11, 2011,
  from a distance of about 200 kilometers.
  The image was rotated 127 degrees counterclockwise, cropped, sharpened and slightly colorized.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/Montage by astroarts.org

Voyager 2 image mosaic of Ariel.

Mosaic of the four high-resolution images C2684533, C2684535, C2684537 and C2684539 of Ariel,
taken by Voyager 2 on January 24, 1986, at a distance of about 130,000 kilometers.
Ariel is about 1,200 km in diameter.
The most notable features on this moon are the interconnected rift valleys that run across the highly pitted terrain. Some of the valleys are up to 10 km deep. They have formed as a result of expansion and stretching of Ariel’s crust.
Two of the Voyager images covering the terminator on the right are somewhat blurred due to the spacecraft’s motion and the longer exposure times of the camera. This could not be completely corrected during image processing.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Mosaic by astroarts.org

Karymsky volcano.

This aerial view shows the Karymsky volcano with the Akademia Nauk caldera lake (also known as Karymsky Lake) in the background.
The 1,486-meter high Karymsky is the most active volcano of Kamchatka’s eastern volcanic zone and one of world’s volcanoes with persistent activity. It is a symmetrical stratovolcano constructed within a 5-km-wide caldera that formed during the early Holocene about 7,700 years ago. The caldera cuts the south side of the Pleistocene Dvor volcano and is located outside the north margin of the 15-km-wide mid-Pleistocene Polovinka caldera, which contains the smaller Akademia Nauk and Odnoboky calderas.

Image Credit: Yann Arthus-Bertrand/astroarts.org

Mars rocky horizon by Viking 2.

Two high-resolution images (22a005.bb2 and 22a011.bb3) by the Viking 2 Lander camera 2 were mosaiced to create this scene of Utopia Planitia looking northeast to the horizon some three kilometers away. The rock in the lower right corner is 25 centimeters across. The largest rock near the center of the picture is about 60 centimeters long and 30 centimeters high. A small channel winds from upper left to lower right. The tilted horizon is due to the eight-degree tilt of the landed spacecraft.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Mosaic by astroarts.org

Image mosaic of a crescent Dione.

Dione mosaic from three images (N00162056/57/58), taken by Cassini on September 03, 2010, from a mean distance of 77,837 kilometers. North is at approximately the 10 o’clock position.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/Mosaic by astroarts.org

Oblique view of the Argyre Basin.

This is a mosaic of the Viking 1 Orbiter images f022a94 (taken on July 12, 1976), f034a11 to 16 and f034a34 (taken on July 24, 1976), and f040a04 (taken on July 30, 1976) and shows the Argyre impact basin in the southern highlands of Mars.
The basin, which is approximately 1,300 kilometers in diameter, was formed about 4 billion years ago during the Heavy Bombardment Period of the early Solar System when an asteroid or comet roughly 50 kilometers across impacted Mars.
Argyre is believed to be the second-largest impact basin on Mars after Hellas Planitia and may be one of the best preserved ancient impact basins from the Heavy Bombardment Period.
Argyre is surrounded by rugged massifs which form concentric and radial patterns around the basin. Several mountain ranges are present, including Charitum and Nereidum Montes.
The 230 km wide Galle Crater, located on the eastern rim of Argyre, strongly resembles a smiley face.
Above the horizon are detached layers of haze 25 to 40 km high, thought to be crystals of carbon dioxide.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University/Mosaic by astroarts.org

"White Rock" on the floor of Pollack Crater.

This mosaic of the Viking 1 Orbiter images f826a33 to 38, taken on September 21, 1978, shows the feature colloquially called “White Rock” which is located on the floor of Pollack Crater in the Sinus Sabaeus region near the Martian equator.
The mosaic was rotated to put north up.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University/Mosaic by astroarts.org

White Rock got its nickname more than 30 years ago, when scientists first spotted the feature on the floor of Pollack Crater in images taken by the Mariner 9 spacecraft.
Pollack, which is about 90 kilometers wide, has a dark floor, especially over its southern half, where White Rock lies. At the time of Mariner 9, rather contrasty image processing gave White Rock, which measures about 15 by 18 km, a chalky-bright appearance.
This brightness led many scientists to propose White Rock was made of water-deposited sediments, like the salty residue of a dried-up desert lake.
In 2001, however, scientists working with the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) found that White Rock has a dry origin and is built of wind-blown sediments. The bright blocks and ridges have the same brightness as light-colored, dusty regions elsewhere on Mars, and White Rock’s spectra likewise matches these and shows no trace of water.
The wind-sculpted ridges that make up White Rock rise about 300 meters above Pollack Crater’s floor, which shows as dark lanes cutting into the light-colored formation.
While the light material stands up as buttes and ridges, lots of loose material nonetheless surrounds White Rock. At the feature’s northern end lies a field of dunes made of dark, basaltic sand grains. These sand grains probably eroded from the lava that covers the floor of Pollack. The dune shapes suggest that some winds blew from the east or southeast. It is possible these were funneled by the channel, some 500 meters wide, that cuts straight through White Rock.

See also:
“White Rock” of Pollack Crater – MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-264, 4 December 2000

HiRISE – White Rock Feature in Pollack Crater (PSP_002099_1720)

HiRISE – White Rock Landform in Pollack Crater (PSP_002244_1720)

CRISM – Pollack Crater’s White Rock