NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been flying our the red planet for the last 20 years, beaming back images of its surface captured by its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.<\/p>\n
This week, NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which oversees Mars missions, shared the 100,000th image taken by HiRISE and posted it along with a selection of other Mars images snapped by the camera over the last two decades.<\/p>\n
You can see them in the post below.<\/p>\n
The remarkable images include everything from impact craters and sand dunes to ice deposits and even potential landing sites for future human missions. It\u2019s worth noting that many HiRISE images don\u2019t show Mars\u2019 expected reddish hue because color processing balances the surface tones with the camera\u2019s blue-green and infrared bands.<\/p>\n
The 100,000th image, which we\u2019ve embedded at the top of this page, was captured in October and shows mesas (flat-topped hills or plateaus with steep sides) and dunes within Syrtis Major, a region about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Jezero Crater, which is currently being explored by NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover<\/a>.<\/p>\n Scientists are now analyzing the image in a bid to better understand the source of windblown sand that gets trapped in the region\u2019s landscape, and which eventually form dunes.<\/p>\n