Positive-Relief Feature on South Polar Layered Deposits
HiRISE PICTURE OF THE DAY: 17 APRIL 2026

A Curious Case of Positive-Relief

This observation captures a curious, fractured feature on the South Polar layered deposits: is this an active feature? We saw this in a much earlier image, but it was very hard to find changes with such an extreme difference in lighting direction. This will be part of a series to reproduce the lighting and compare any changes.



100,000 Image of Mars!
On 7 October 2025, the HiRISE camera aboard MRO acquired an image of the Syrtis Major plains that marks over 100,000 images of Mars, which is a fabulous milestone!
HiRISE Image of Exocomet 3I/ATLAS
On 2 October 2025, MRO turned away from Mars to image 3I/ATLAS, only the third interstellar object ever observed passing through our solar system!

HiRISE Instrument News
HiRISE Instrument News
Since mid-2023, our RED4 CCD has operated only intermittently due to a hardware issue, creating gaps in the middle of some image products and reducing the color swath to 1 CCD width. We continue to command RED4 in all observations and it returns data approximately 50% of the time

Ejecta Moving into Crater in Chryse Planitia
The objective of this observation is to examine what appears to be ejecta moving into a small crater. More resolution is needed to tell exactly what is going on here. This scene is also visible in Context Camera data. Chryse Planitia is a region where the Viking 1 lander and Mars Pathfinder touched down.