Mars Geological Features

A collection of grey-scale images showcasing Martian landscapes, including lava tubes, craters, and dunes, revealing diverse geological processes.

Venus - Comparison of Venera and Magellan Resolutions

Focus on El Capitan

Volcanic Surface Textures

Deep Impact

This image captured by NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft resembles a face staring back at the spacecraft. Orbit Number 65345 Latitude 34.4675 Longitude 105.179 Instrument IR Captured 2016-09-06 09 27

Olympica Fossae

Martian Brain

Jupiter's atmospheric circulation is dominated by alternating eastward and westward jets from equatorial to polar latitudes. This image was taken on April 3, 1997, by NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

NASA's Cassini image features a density wave in Saturn's A ring (at left) that lies around 134,500 km from Saturn. Density waves are accumulations of particles at certain distances from the planet.

This stereo image mosaic from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor is of Mars' south polar terrain. 3D glasses are necessary to view this image.

This MOC image shows crescent-shaped, scooped-out hollows where wind has eroded the local bedrock in the Apollinaris Sulci region

Research using data from NASA's ARTEMIS mission suggests that lunar swirls, like the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl imaged here by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, could be the result of solar wind interactions with the Moon's isolated pockets of magnetic field.

THEMIS Images as Art #38

This MOC image shows windblown ripples on the floor of Auqakuh Vallis. The light-toned area, running diagonally across the scene from the lower left to the upper right, may be dust that has accumulated in the bottom of the valley and on top of the ripples

Public-Requested Mars Image: Crater on Pavonis Mons

NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this false-color image (right) of an impact crater in asteroid Vesta's equatorial region with its framing camera on July 25, 2011. The view on the left is from the camera's clear filter.

This Magellan image is centered in the northeastern Atalanta Region of Venus.

Europa's surface is covered with a vast network of linear features such as cracks, ridges, and bands, as well as other smaller circular features that include pits, spots, domes, and microchaos. This image, created from clear-filter images taken on the Galileo spacecraft's 17th orbit around Jupiter and colorized with lower-resolution images taken on Galileo's first orbit around Jupiter (link to

3-D Image of Enceladus' Craters

The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its laser and spectrometers to examine what chemical elements are in a drift of Martian sand during the mission's 74th Martian day, or sol (Oct. 20, 2012).

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has detected widespread deposits of glacial ice in the mid-latitudes of Mars. This map of a region known as Deuteronilus Mensae, in the northern hemisphere, shows locations of the detected ice deposits in blue.

These two images, taken four years before Saturns August 2009 equinox by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, indicate the streaks in these images are likely evidence of impacts into the planets rings.

Spirit's View of 'Columbia Hills' (polar)

. Peeking Into Lunar Pits

AS08-12-2193 (21-27 Dec. 1968) --- View of the lunar surface taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft looking southward from high altitude across the Southern Sea. (Hold picture with AS8 number in upper right corner). The bright-rayed crater near the horizon is located near 130 degrees east longitude and 70 degrees south latitude. The dark-floored crater near the middle of the right side of the photograph is about 70 kilometers (45 statute miles) in diameter. Both features are beyond the eastern limb of the moon as viewed from Earth; neither has a name.

Buckland Boulders

Many prominent rocks near the Sagan Memorial Station are featured in this image, from NASA's Mars Pathfinder. 'Shark', 'Half-Dome', and 'Pumpkin', 'Flat Top' and 'Frog' are at center 3D glasses are necessary to identify surface detail.

Sappinia is an amoeba (a single-celled living organism), found in the environment. There are two known species of Sappinia: Sappinia diploidea and Sappinia pedata. This amoeba causes amoebic encephalitis, which is an infection of the brain. Worldwide, only one case of amoebic encephalitis due to Sappinia infection has been reported.

Baseball laying with home plate on dirt field for game in black and white.

Europa Ice Rafts

This image is illuminated by sunlight from the upper left. Looking like pieces of sliced and broken swiss cheese, the upper layer of the martian south polar residual cap has been eroded, leaving flat-topped mesas into which are set circular depressions such as those shown here. The circular features are depressions, not hills. The largest mesas here stand about 4 meters (13 feet) high and may be composed of frozen carbon dioxide and/or water. Nothing like this has ever been seen anywhere on Mars except within the south polar cap, leading to some speculation that these landforms may have something to do with the carbon dioxide thought to be frozen in the south polar region. On Earth, we know frozen carbon dioxide as dry ice. On Mars, as this picture might be suggesting, there may be entire landforms larger than a small town and taller than 2 to 3 men and women that consist, in part, of dry ice. No one knows for certain whether frozen carbon dioxide has played a role in the creation of t

North Polar Permanent Cap Crater

This view from the microscopic imager on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows a type of light-colored, rough-textured spherules scientists call 'popcorn' in contrast to the darker, smoother spherules called 'blueberries.'

This area of Amazonis Planitia to the west of the large volcano Olympus Mons was once flooded with lava as seen by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. A huge eruption flowed out across the relatively flat landscape.

This synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) image was obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on July 25, 2016, during its 'T-121' pass over Titan's southern latitudes. The image shows an area nicknamed the 'Xanadu annex' by members of the Cassini radar team.

NASA's Terra spacecraft reveals signs of life in New Zealand's Mount Ruapehu Volcano which has been on a level 1 volcanic alert for some time, indicating minor volcanic unrest.

Waves on Saturn

This image acquired by NASA's Terra spacecraft is of Mount Etna, on the Italian island of Sicily, Europe's most active volcano, where its latest series of eruptions has continued for weeks.

This montage of images from NASA's Cassini orbiter shows the precise location of the north pole on Saturn's icy moon Enceladus.

This highest-resolution image from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft reveals new details of Pluto's rugged, icy cratered plains.

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image of dunes in the martian north polar region is important because it shows one of the highest northern latitude views of streaks thought to be made by passing dust devils. The dark, thin, filamentary streaks on the dunes and on the adjacent plains were probably formed by dust devils. The dunes occur near 76.6°N, 62.7°W. Dust devil streaks are observed on Mars at very high latitudes, such as this, all the way down to the equator. They are also seen at all elevations, from the deepest parts of the Hellas Basin to the summit of Olympus Mons. This picture covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) wide. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the lower left. http //photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06334

This anaglyph, from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, shows Meseta de Somuncura, a broad plateau capped by basalt. Near its western edge is evidence of multiple volcanic events. 3D glasses are necessary to view this image.

Siton Undae is a large dune field located in the northern plains near Escorial Crater. Siton Undae is west of the crater and is one of three dune fields near the crater. The nearby north polar cap is dissected by Chasma Boreale, which exposes an ice free surface. This image shows part of the southern extent of the dune field. The Odyssey spacecraft has spent over 15 years in orbit around Mars, circling the planet more than 69000 times. It holds the record for longest working spacecraft at Mars. THEMIS, the IR/VIS camera system, has collected data for the entire mission and provides images covering all seasons and lighting conditions. Over the years many features of interest have received repeated imaging, building up a suite of images covering the entire feature. From the deepest chasma to the tallest volcano, individual dunes inside craters and dune fields that encircle the north pole, channels carved by water and lava, and a variety of other feature, THEMIS has imaged them all. For t

Spirit's Course

This mosaic shows the features of a hazy cloud layer tens of kilometers above Jupiter's main visible cloud deck as seen by NASA's Galileo orbiter on February 19, 1997.

CRISM's Global Mapping of Mars, Part 1

These images and animation represent NASA radar observations of 4660 Nereus on Dec. 10, 2021, before the asteroid's close approach on Dec. 11, when it came within 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) of Earth. Using the 70-meter radio antenna at the Deep Space Network's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory acquired the most detailed radar images of the nearly 1,100-foot-wide (330-meter-wide) near-Earth asteroid since its discovery almost four decades earlier. Nereus' orbit is very well known and the asteroid does not pose a threat to Earth. During the asteroid's close approach, an image resolution of about 12.3 feet (3.75 meters) per pixel was possible, revealing surface features such as potential boulders and craters, plus ridges and other topography. Asteroid Nereus' previous approach in 2002 was near enough to Earth to reveal the asteroid's size and overall shape, but too distant to show surface fe

A Great Place to Watch the Weather (polar)

This area of terrain near the Sagan Memorial Station was taken by NASA's Mars Pathfinder. 3D glasses are necessary to identify surface detail.

$A Bear on Mars. This feature looks a bit like a bear's face. What is it really There's a hill with a V-shaped collapse structure (the nose), two craters (the eyes), and a circular fracture pattern (the head). The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater. Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows Maybe just grin and bear it. https //photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA25709$

Four Galileo Views of Amalthea

This mosaic shot by the microscopic imager on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows a rock target called 'Esperance' after some of the rock's surface had been removed by Opportunity's rock abrasion tool.

Two Radar Sounders Examine South Polar Layered Deposits on Mars

Mars Exploration Rover (MER-B) Opportunity Landing Site

This feature from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter looks like a heart. It is located south of Ascraeus Mons, which is a large volcano within the Tharsis volcanic plateau, making it extremely likely that this feature was formed by a volcanic process.

This image, made from data obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, shows a perspective view of a layered young crater in the Rheasilvia basin at asteroid Vesta.

Stressed-out Enceladus

Two Mars Years of South Polar Change

Bioprinting, an artificial fabrication of biological tissues allowing regenerative medicine, dark purple dots are viable cells and able to survive in the model.

Opportunity's Travels During its First 205 Martian Days

Titan's Sand

A Double Take at Serpent Drift

Looking east to west across the rim and down into Chaplygin crater reveals this beautiful example of a fresh young crater and its perfectly preserved ejecta blanket. The delicate patterns of flow across, over, and down local topography clearly show that ejecta traveled as a ground hugging flow for great distances, rather than simply being tossed out on a ballistic trajectory. Very near the rim lies a dark, lacy, discontinuous crust of now frozen impact melt. Clearly this dark material is on top of the bright material so it was the very last material ejected from the crater. The melt was formed as the tremendous energy of impact was converted to heat and the lunar crust was melted at the impact point. As the crater rebounded and material sloughed down the walls of the deforming crater the melt was splashed out over the rim and froze. Its low reflectance is mostly due to a high percentage of glass because the melt cooled so quickly that minerals did not have time to crystallize. The fact

Large Brown Spot in Saturn's Atmosphere

On its 256th orbit of Mars, the camera on-board NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft successfully observed the vicinity of the Mars Pathfinder landing site. 3D glasses are necessary to identify surface detail.

This image is a mosaic of Vesta's equatorial region, composed of observations taken through the panchromatic filter on the framing camera onboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft on July 24, 2011.

Nope, Not Jupiter!

A Closer Look at 'Kalavrita'

Royal Air Force Maintenance Command, 1939-1945. Oblique aerial view of the crater caused by the detonation of 3,500 tons of high explosive in the New High Explosive Bomb Area at No. 21 Maintenance Unit at Fauld, near Hanbury, Staffordshire, at 11.11 am on 27 November 1944. RAF Fauld, situated in a former gypsum mine, was the main repository of HE ordnance in the country. The explosion, calculated at some 4 kilotonnes, constitutes the world's largest non-nuclear explosion. 23 workers at the site, both RAF personnel and Italian prisoners of war, were killed, as were 41 workers at a nearby plaster works, and a number of local inhabitants. The view is from the west, with Stonepit Hills and the RAF camp visible at the top.

Opportunity Tracks Seen from Orbit

This image covers much of Ovda Regio, which forms the western part of Aphrodite Terra captured by NASA's Magellan spacecraft.

Shadows Draw Attention to Features of Mars Landscape (Sand Ripples)

Looking Saturn in the Eye

Thera and Thrace Macula on Europa

This is a false-color L-band image of an area near Glasgow, Missouri, centered at about 39.2 degrees north latitude and 92.8 degrees west longitude.

Mars Polar Lander: The Search Begins

NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface. The HiRISE camera captured this image of Curiosity while the orbiter was listening to transmissions from the rover.

Lunar Surface

This 3-D anaglyph, from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, shows an extreme close-up of round, blueberry-shaped grains on the crater floor near the rock outcrop at Meridiani Planum called Stone Mountain. 3D glasses are necessary.

Barnstorming Linn Crater

Interpreted Lava Fountains on Io

Close-up of Europa's Surface and similar scales on Earth

MOC Observes Changes in the South Polar Cap: Evidence for Recent Climate Change on Mars

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