PIA24917: Utopia Planitia


Utopia Planitia

Caption:

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Map Projected Browse Image
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The Utopia Planitia region contains many distinctive landscapes. The bumpy and pitted ground in this image may have formed through the eruption of either lava or mud onto the surface from deep underground.

Mud volcanoes on Earth provide oases for life. If these features also formed through the eruption of mud, these landforms may hold clues to possible life-supporting oases in Mars' distant past.

The map is projected here at a scale of 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) per pixel. (The original image scale is 58.8 centimeters [23.1 inches] per pixel [with 2 x 2 binning]; objects on the order of 177 centimeters [69.7 inches] across are resolved.) North is up.

Background Info:

The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Mars
System
Target Type Planet
Mission Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
Instrument Host Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE)
Detector
Extra Keywords Color, Map, Volcano
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2021-10-19
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24917
Identifier PIA24917