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Going with the Flow

Jan. 31, 2023
This image acquired on October 24, 2022 by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows Harmakhis Vallis, an approximately 800-kilometer long outflow channel located in eastern Hellas.

Harmakhis Vallis is an approximately 800-kilometer long outflow channel located in eastern Hellas. The valley probably formed by a combination of surface collapse and flowing water.

The edges of Harmakhis Vallis were enlarged by material slumping off the walls, and it was later filled with ice-rich material, similar to glaciers on Earth. This image shows part of the valley floor that filled with glacial ice. Can you see the parallel ridges on some of the glaciers that show how the ice flowed downhill, around and between obstacles?

The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. (The original image scale is 25.7 centimeters [10.1 inches] per pixel [with 1 x 1 binning]; objects on the order of 77 centimeters [30.3 inches] across are resolved.) North is up.

This is a stereo pair with ESP_076140_1420.

The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

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