NASA spots a dragon on Mars
The HiRise camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured an impressive Martian photograph.
Mars continues to fascinate us every day. Now, the high-resolution camera Imagine Science Experiment (HiRise) aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which previously revealed that the red planet apparently is a geek (it would be impossible to forget the appearance of the Star Trek logo at the bottom of a giant crater), we can now observe a "dragon" that is hidden in part of the Mars Grand Canyon system, Valles Marineris, which stretches along the planet’s equator.
HiRise is an incredibly powerful camera. It has a resolution of up to 30 centimetres per pixel and has already covered more than 2.4 percent of the Martian surface. In this image, a portion of the Martian rock wall and canyon floor appear to have formed a "dragon".
As described by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “There is evidence of the action of water and wind as modes of formation for many of the inner reservoirs” in Melas Chasma. In fact, the waves you can see in the darker matrix surrounding the dragon are due to the wind.
What will MRO’s next surprise be as it continues to orbit Mars?
