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You Make Me Smile!

This picture of a crater resembling a "happy face" was taken in January 2008, by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's Context Camera. The unnamed crater is almost 2 miles (about 3 kilometers) across.

February 12, 2014

This picture of a crater resembling a "happy face" was taken in January 2008, by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's Context Camera. The unnamed crater is almost 2 miles (about 3 kilometers) across.

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NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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An image combining orbital imagery with 3-D modeling shows flows that appear in spring and summer on a slope inside Mars' Newton crater.
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This animation demonstrates the salty ponds and streams that scientists think may have been left behind as Gale Crater dried out over time. The bottom of the image is the floor of Gale Crater, with...
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This animation demonstrates the salty ponds and streams that scientists think may have been left behind as Gale Crater dried out over time. The bottom of the image is the floor of Gale Crater, with the peak being the side of Mount Sharp.
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This image acquired on April 8, 2018 by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the gullied western slopes of an unnamed crater (about 10 kilometers wide) in Acidalia Planitia.
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Crater Gullies and Fractures in Acidalia Planitia
Crater Gullies and Fractures in Acidalia Planitia
This image acquired on December 3, 2018 by NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows a cross-section of a dune field. Dune shape depends on several factors, including the amount of sand present and ...
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Deposits on the floor of Palos Crater
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Deposits on the floor of Palos Crater
Deposits on the floor of Palos Crater
This view from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows part of an area on Mars where narrow rock ridges, some as tall as a 16-story building, intersect at angles forming corne...
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This view from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows part of an area on Mars where narrow rock ridges, some as tall as a 16-story building, intersect at angles forming corners of polygons.
Blade-Like Martian Walls Outline Polygons
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a hill with a central crater. Such features have been interpreted as both mud volcanoes (really a sedimentary structure) and as actual volca...
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This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a hill with a central crater on the floor of Valles Marineris. It could be either a real volcano, the kind that erupts lava, or a sedimentary structure called a mud volcano.
A Volcano of Mud or Lava?
The feature that appears bright blue at the center of this scene is NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp, viewed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Curiosity is ...
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The feature that appears bright blue at the center of this scene is NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp, viewed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Curiosity is approximately 10 feet long and 9 feet wide (3.0 meters by 2.8 meters).
Curiosity Rover on Mount Sharp, Seen from Mars Orbit
This nearly global mosaic of observations made by the Mars Color Imager on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 18, 2012, shows a dust storm in Mars' southern hemisphere.
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This nearly global mosaic of observations made by the Mars Color Imager on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 18, 2012, shows a dust storm in Mars' southern hemisphere.
Martian Dust Storm, Nov. 18, 2012
This series of images shows carbon dioxide ice sublimating (going directly from a solid to a gas) inside a pit at Mars' south pole. Each frame of the animation was taken by the HiRISE camera on NAS...
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This series of images shows carbon dioxide ice sublimating (going directly from a solid to a gas) inside a pit at Mars' south pole.
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This annotated image shows where features seen in an observation by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have been interpreted as hardware from the Dec. 25, 2003, arrival at Mars of the United Kingdo...
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This annotated image shows where features seen in an observation by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have been interpreted as hardware from the Dec. 25, 2003, arrival at Mars of the United Kingdom's Beagle 2 Lander.
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Shalbatana Vallis is a large channel with steep walls and a flat floor that may have formed by water draining from nearby Ganges Chasma. Here a section of the wall collapsed and produced a landslid...
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Shalbatana Vallis is a large channel with steep walls and a flat floor that may have formed by water draining from nearby Ganges Chasma.
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This observation shows a wrinkle ridge in Solis Planum, located in the Thaumasia region of Mars, a high-elevation volcanic plain located south of the Valles Marineris canyon system and east of the ...
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Wrinkle Ridge in Solis Planum
Download a PDF of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Arival Press Kit.
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MRO arrival press kit
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Arrival Press Kit
Two dark, rimless pits are located to the northwest of Ascraeus Mons in the Tharsis volcanic region of Mars.
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Dark Rimless Pits in the Tharsis Region
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Clay Minerals in Mawrth Vallis Region of Mars
This picture of a heart-shaped pit was taken on 26 February 2008 by the CTX camera aboard MRO. It is approximately 2 km long. The pit is one of many adjacent to Hydaspis Chaos, a jumbled topographi...
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This picture of a heart-shaped pit was taken on 26 February 2008 by the CTX camera aboard MRO. It is approximately 2 km long. The pit is one of many adjacent to Hydaspis Chaos, a jumbled topographic depression thought to have formed by collapse of the surface due to-perhaps-catastrophic release of groundwater.
From the Pit of My Heart
Polygonal Ridge in Gordii Dorsum Region, Mars
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Polygonal Ridge in Gordii Dorsum Region, Mars
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This sequence of images shows a blast zone where the sky crane from NASA's Curiosity rover mission hit the ground after setting the rover down in August 2012, and how that dark scar's appearance ch...
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This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 43rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 19, 2012).
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This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 43rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 19, 2012).
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This Oct. 25, 2016, image from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the area where the Europe's Schiaparelli test lander struck Mars, with magnified insets of three sites w...
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Schiaparelli Impact Site on Mars, Stereo

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