Amazonis Planitia Surface Textures
HiRISE PICTURE OF THE DAY: 1 MAY 2024

Textures of Amazonis

This observation was requested to look at some unusual surface textures in Amazonis Planitia. Some of the terrain grades into ridges that could possibly be invasive dikes or lava intruding into overlying ash. Despite the features in this image, Amazonis Planitia is one of the smoothest plains on Mars, and is located between the Tharsis and Elysium volcanic provinces, to the west of Olympus Mons.



HiRISE Instrument News
Since July 23, 2023, HiRISE observations have lacked data from the RED4 CCD due to a hardware issue, creating a gap in the middle of image products and reducing the color swath to 1 CCD width. We are investigating the hardware issue and may be able to acquire some RED4 data in the future.

Icy Cliffs at the Martian North Pole
In the spring, we also sometimes see avalanches pouring down these cliff faces and this image was taken to search for more of them.