A Wild Assortment of Jumbled Rocks

This image covers a region of Mars near Nili Fossae that contains some of the best exposures of ancient bedrock on Mars.

The enhanced-color subimage shows part of the ejecta from an impact crater. The impact broke up already diverse rocks types and mixed them together to create this wild jumble of colors, each representing a different type of rock.

HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the orbiter's HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.

Originally released March 28, 2012