THEMIS Features
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A THEMIS false-color infrared image reveals olivine-rich terrain adjacent to the Perseverance rover landing site.
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Volcanic magma rising along a fault line broke open a subsurface water reservoir and created a giant outflow channel.
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Kasei Valles is the largest channel carved by water on Mars. And it's also home to the biggest dry waterfalls known anywhere.
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When Ravi Vallis was born in a geological instant, water came out of the ground so fast it probably ran uphill.
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In Memnonia Sulci, the wind has carved long ridges in one of Mars' most enigmatic geologic units.
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Is Tyrrhena Mons telling us that Mars' volcanic style changed radically at some point? And if it did, why?
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A Martian river valley looks like it washed down a lot of sediments into a shallow basin.
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A look into part of Valles Marineris shows a canyon that offers great features to explore — but with risks that place it beyond today's rover-landing technology.
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Where the Martian highlands descend to the northern lowlands, a landscape has developed that points to loads of subsurface ice.
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It took millions of years — and a varying tilt in the Martian axis — to build, and then sculpt, the mound of debris lodged in Becquerel Crater.
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Was an underground injection of molten lava responsible for chaotic terrain in Hydraotes? Cinder cones point to the answer.
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Sediments collected in this ancient impact basin record a history of Martian geological change going back billions of years.
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In NASA's search for traces of ancient Mars life, a ruined crater on the crumbling edge of the highlands offers one potenially rewarding place to look.
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Young rocky plains meet an ancient landscape where the lava flows of Daedalia engulf the borders of Terra Sirenum.
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Exploring a pocket-canyon inside Valles Marineris could give scientists a good shot at finding traces of ancient life.
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A valley in Arabia Terra slices through ancient clay-rich layers that may become the target for NASA's next Mars rover.
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Waters that carved Ares and Tiu Valles poured out of the uplands and emptied into Chryse Planitia. They tell of an older Mars, wetter than today's.
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A huge landslide in Noctis Labyrinthus may have been caused when a meteorite impact blasted a crater near the canyon edge.
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Petals of rocky debris encircle a fresh Martian crater, telling scientists secrets of blast waves and impacts.
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While The Face is no artifact of an alien civilization, both it and the Cydonia region bear traces of climate changes that possibly favor life.
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Rocky debris from Gratteri Crater lies scattered far across Mars. Some of the debris might even have reached Earth.
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A landscape buried long ago is emerging again near the edge of the highlands in part of Mars' Arabia Terra.
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Molten rock knifed upward into a fault, widening it and releasing groundwater to erode a Martian valley.
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The gigantic mesa in Hebes Chasma is record book of Mars' geologic past. Scientists have begun to open and read it.
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Most Martian lavas are basalts, like those in Hawaii. But the lava picture for Nili Patera isn't so simple.
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Deposits of sulfate minerals in part of Valles Marineris point to much weathering by water.
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A small basin within the "Grand Canyon of Mars" may hold lakebed sediments that could preserve traces of early Martian life.
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Billions of years of deposition and erosion have scrawled a complex story on a large crater's smooth floor.
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Wind erosion, lava flows, and impacts have each helped shape the face of western Arabia Terra.
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Stacks of gypsum in Juventae Chasma recall an era when water was plentiful on Mars — and maybe life, too.
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Can scientists find traces of ancient life where water burst out from Iani Chaos long ago?
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Terby Crater contains sediment layers going back at least 3 billion years in Martian history. It's a record book waiting to be opened.
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A broad channel in Nili Fossae could be a great place to look for ancient Mars life.
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When Valles Marineris formed, it exposed a geological record book in the canyon walls.
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Layers of dust and sand are emerging from the edge of the Martian north polar cap, as the ice cover retreats.
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Craters of widely different ages have made their mark on the streamlined islands in Maja Valles.
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A water channel flowing through a large crater might be the landing site for NASA's next Mars rover. And not far away there's a river delta as well.
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Ice and debris from countless climate cycles have all but buried this crater in the Martian north polar region.
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A thick stack of sediments in an ancient crater hints at a long and complex geological history.
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NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover may land in a crater that contains a thick stack of geological records.
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The Martian feature known as White Rock is actually an eroding deposit of wind-blown sediments.
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Impacts, floods, and tectonic forces have all left traces on this Martian outflow channel.
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A deep canyon reveals ancient material long buried under the northern polar cap of Mars.
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The debris that fills Mamers Valles on Mars strongly suggests it flowed into place, carried by buried ice.
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Water gushed from Cerberus Fossae, carving Athabasca Valles. The floods may have stopped only a few million years ago.
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A highly detailed mosaic provides the best look ever into the largest canyon in the whole solar system. Bonus extra: a fly-through animated movie.
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Mudflows and lava carved channels in Granicus Valles, west of Elysium Mons, as volcanic heat melted underground ice.
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The hematite found by Mars rover Opportunity in Meridiani Planum formed during a wet interval that probably was geologically brief.
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A sea of sand dunes around Mars' north polar cap points to a bygone time when the polar region was ice-free.
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Meteorites that strike ice-rich ground on Mars produce spectacular features suggesting that such craters unfold in two stages.
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The complex shapes of dunes in an ancient crater show that prevailing winds have shifted direction over the years as the climate changed.
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A smooth, flat-bottomed valley lies where ancient floods carved a channel past lava-topped mesas billions of years ago.
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Faulting, volcanic eruptions, and meteorite impacts all unfold in a jumbled sequence across an ancient landscape in northern Tharsis.
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Thick aprons of debris around impact craters in Mars' northern lowlands suggest that large amounts of subsurface ice have disappeared.
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The floor of a large crater contains a field of sand dunes that may be blowing back into the pit from which they originated.
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The junction of several Martian canyons reveals details in the layers of rock making up the region.
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Isolated mesas on Mars stand surrounded by sheets of rocky rubble filled with ice, possible remnants of a former Ice Age.
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Martian river beds? Flowing material indeed carved these channels, but most likely it was molten rock instead of water.
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Gusev Crater, landing site for NASA's Mars rover Spirit, contains a complex set of features pointing to a long geological history.
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Nighttime infrared views can tell scientists about the physical properties of the Martian surface, helping them map the proportion of rocks and dust.
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Ganges Chasma, part of the Valles Marineris canyon system, contains enormous overlapping landslides and provides scientists a view into the misty depths of Martian geologic time.
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