NASA imagines a whimsical dragon on Mars in a sinuous, scenic canyon
The team behind the HiRise camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter imagined a dragon.
The HiRise team shared a view of a canyon on Mars as a picture of the day on Saturday. "We rotated this image of light-toned blocky material in southwestern Melas Chasma because from this perspective, it resembles a fabled Chinese dragon," the group tweeted.
HiPOD 11 Apr 2020: Year of the Dragon
— HiRISE: Beautiful Mars (NASA) (@HiRISE) April 11, 2020
We rotated this image of light-toned blocky material in southwestern Melas Chasma because from this perspective, it resembles a fabled Chinese dragon.
NASA/JPL/UArizonahttps://t.co/6wGlHKmrN5 #Mars #science pic.twitter.com/bPF9Kk1Uxb
The HiRise site run by the University of Arizona pointed out a series of small valleys near the bottom of the image. "Several of the light-toned deposits are seen only in the valleys, suggesting they were either deposited or are exposed by erosion," the team wrote.
Melas Chasmas is one part of the massive Valles Marineri canyon system located along the planet's equator. "There is evidence of both water and wind action as modes of formation for many of the interior deposits," NASA said in a 2017 release about Melas Chasma.
MRO's camera originally captured the dragon-like picture back in 2007. It highlights the wealth of historical imagery in the HiRise archives. The orbiter has been in residence at Mars for over 14 years and continues to send back valuable views of the planet's surface as it investigates the history of water there.
When it comes to mythical creatures on Mars, the dragon is in good company. The HiRise team once spotted the Game of Thrones House Stark direwolf in a group of dust avalanches.
You should read it
- Over 12,000 people applied to fly to the moon and Mars as NASA Artemis astronauts
- NASA reveals its latest snapshot of the Martian surface with a resolution of 1.8 billion pixels
- Even Mars-invading robots must 'wash their hands' before working
- NASA exploration robots capture the surface of Mars like Earth
- NASA announces more than 1,000 latest Martian surface images
- Deep-sea rocks on Earth spark new hope for finding life on Mars
- Looking back at NASA's Mars exploration process over the past 20 years
- Elon Musk shows off Starship prototype coming together in its oversize garage
May be interested
- Oumuamua more likely an interstellar space shard than an alien spaceship, study findsnew research suggests the weird object may have been ripped from another planet and flung in our general direction by a distant star.
- Can homemade face masks prevent the coronavirus? Everything you should knowthe cdc recommends wearing homemade face masks and face coverings in public, from hand-sewn cloth to bandanas and rubber bands. here's how they can and can't help you at preventing coronavirus, and how they're different from n95 masks.
- Watch the NASA Apollo 13 mission 50 years lateran online project called apollo 13 in real time presents the authentic, non-hollywood version of the explosion that doomed the moon mission.
- See Earth through the eyes of a Mercury-bound spacecraft saying goodbye to homeesa and jaxa's bepicolombo mercury mission took a spin around earth and captured some poignant views.
- NASA satellite views of Chernobyl Exclusion Zone wildfires paint a worrisome picturescientists have already raised concerns about the potential spread of radiation through smoke plumes.
- How to handle bee stingswhen a bee stings need emergency help because its venom can make the victim poisoned, fever, anaphylactic shock, acute kidney failure, hemolysis ... even life-threatening.