HiRISE | Boulders on Mars are Headed Downhill (ESP_085012

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

Boulders on Mars are Headed Downhill
ESP_085012_1900 Science Theme:

Features on the surface of Mars change over time for many reasons, but one process that’s universal to all planets is gravity.

We can see boulders and smaller rocks around the bases of most steep rocky cliffs. With HiRISE, we can compare two images and find new boulders that have broken off the cliff face and sometimes even see the trail that the boulder has left as it tumbled further downhill. Finding these new rockfalls with HiRISE is difficult as they’re small and the dataset is huge.

Recently, scientists have started using machine learning techniques to help find and catalog features like these. Understanding how often these rockfalls happen allows us to guess the age of the slopes. In this image we’re searching for new boulders at the bottom of Cerberus Fossae, a volcanic fissure that's thought to be quite young.

Written by: Shane Byrne (23 January 2025)

Acquisition date
14 September 2024

Local Mars time
14:17

Latitude (centered)
10.016°

Longitude (East)
157.820°

Spacecraft altitude
276.6 km (171.9 miles)

Original image scale range
from 27.7 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) to 55.4 cm/pixel (with 2 x 2 binning)

Map projected scale
25 cm/pixel and North is up

Map projection
Equirectangular

Emission angle
1.7°

Phase angle
42.6°

Solar incidence angle
41°, with the Sun about 49° above the horizon

Solar longitude
329.1°, Northern Winter

For non-map projected images
North azimuth: 97°
Sub-solar azimuth: 333.4°

JPEG
Black and white
map projected  non-map

IRB color
map projected  non-map

Merged IRB
map projected

Merged RGB
map projected

RGB color
non-map projected

JP2
Black and white
map-projected   (225MB)

IRB color
map-projected   (139MB)

JP2 EXTRAS
Black and white
map-projected (69MB)
non-map           (148MB)

IRB color
map projected (52MB)
non-map           (216MB)

Merged IRB
map projected (85MB)

Merged RGB
map-projected (79MB)

RGB color
non map           (201MB)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
B&W label
Color label
Merged IRB label
Merged RGB label
EDR products
HiView

NB
IRB: infrared-red-blue
RGB: red-green-blue
About color products (PDF)

Black & white is 5 km across; enhanced color about 1 km
For scale, use JPEG/JP2 black & white map-projected images

USAGE POLICY
All of the images produced by HiRISE and accessible on this site are within the public domain: there are no restrictions on their usage by anyone in the public, including news or science organizations. We do ask for a credit line where possible:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

POSTSCRIPT
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.