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Many Fantastic Colors

April 21, 2016
The Nili Fossae region, located on the northwest rim of Isidis impact basin, is one of the most colorful regions of Mars, as seen here by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.
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The Nili Fossae region, located on the northwest rim of Isidis impact basin, is one of the most colorful regions of Mars.

The colors over many regions of Mars are homogenized by the dust and regolith, but here the bedrock is very well exposed, except where there are sand dunes. The rocks also have diverse compositions, which produce different colors in HiRISE infrared-red-blue color images.

This region is ancient and has had a complicated geologic history, leading to interesting structures like layered bedrock, as well as other compositions.

This is a stereo pair with ESP_044095_2010.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, 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 NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

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