Frost in Dune Shadows

This Southern autumn image captures a view of frosty dunes. The sunlight is shining on the dunes from the upper right.

The low sun angle creates large shadows from these dunes, making for a dramatic picture. Frost is visible in the shadows of the dunes that appear as lighter or bluer swirls in each shadow. Along the illuminated section of the dunes, in the center-right of the image, five dark thin dust devil tracks are snaking their way along, parallel to the dune ridge. (North is to the left in this image, the image height covers 1.2 kilometers of the Martian surface.)

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.