A Slash across Layered Deposits
HiRISE PICTURE OF THE DAY: 15 DECEMBER 2025
A Slash across Layered Deposits

The North Polar layered deposits are a stack of ice-rich layers, having varying amounts of dust. Here, a straight-line feature cuts across many layers, seemingly changing their brightness and indicating a major change in the layer properties.



HiRISE Image of Exocomet 3I/ATLAS
On 2 October 2025, MRO turned away from Mars to image 3I/ATLAS, only the third interstellar object ever observed passing through our solar system!

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.

Glacial (Ice) or Lava Flow?
The geologic setting and latitude here suggest this is a glacial (ice-rich) flow, but the surface is broken into plates like many lava flows on Mars.