Category: Exploring Mars

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)

High-resolution PNG (1050×1150 pixels; 597 KB)

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)

High-resolution PNG (2115×945 pixels; 2.74 MB)

This mosaic of 22 Viking 1 Orbiter images (f473s13/17/19/21/23/25/27/29, f474s17/19, and f474s21 to 32), taken on July 11 and July 12, 1980, shows the complex caldera at the summit of Olympus Mons. South is at the top.
The caldera, a composite of as many as seven roughly circular collapse depressions, is 66 by 83 km across. The lowest parts of the floor are over 4 kilometers below the rim of the caldera.

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

High-resolution PNG (4475×4610 pixels; 6.38 MB)

Note: This is the most complete high-resolution Viking Orbiter image mosaic of the Olympus Mons caldera which has been published to date.
For comparison, here is a mosaic of the Olympus Mons caldera produced by A. Tayfun Öner in 1997 and published on Calvin J. Hamilton’s website “Views of the Solar System”, and here is a mosaic produced by JPL and published in NASA’s Planetary Photojournal.