Images

Banded iron formation. Core room of Vale do Rio Doce Company, Carajás iron mine. Searching for life on Mars using Mars analogs in Australia.

Studying an iron mine as Mars analog.

A cone located on Pavonis Mons, Mars. Pavonis Mons is a shield volcano in the Tharsis region. This cone’s location in a volcanically active area, its parasitic position on Pavonis Mons, and its breach are all familiar to Earth cinder cones. It’s thus very likely that this is a cinder cone. (HiRISE image PSP_002671_1790)

Fractured mounds at the southern edge of Elysium Planitia. Elysium Planitia is a wide plain that lies to the south of the volcanic region Elysium. These features are found in a region of uplift that is theorized to be a massive lava inflation feature.

A larger view of the area in which possible tumuli are located. The mounds are at the southern edge of Elysium Planitia. Elysium Planitia is a wide plain that lies to the south of the volcanic region Elysium. These features are found in a region of uplift that is theorized to be a massive lava inflation feature.

Red beds as Mars analog.

Field trip to Death Valley. John Mars (USGS), Simon Hook (JPL), C.R. Souza Filho (University of Campinas), Giles Marion (Desert Research Institute)

Field trip to Death Valley. Jim Crowley (USGS), Giles Marion (Desert Research Institute), John Mars (USGS).

Field trip to Death Valley. John Mars (USGS). Giles Marion (Desert Research Institute), Jim Crowley (USGS), Simon Hook (JPL).

Jim Crowley taking spectral measurements of arid soil with a field spectrometer.

As it swooped past the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus on July 14, 2005, Cassini acquired high resolution views of this puzzling ice world. From afar, Enceladus exhibits a bizarre mixture of softened craters and complex, fractured terrains.

Photo taken by Opportunity of Sphere-like grains nicknamed "Blueberries", due to their shape. Photo is a mosaic of PANCAM and MI instruments.

Infrared composite image of Uranus taken by the Keck Telescope. 

USGS IMAP 2693: Geologic map of the MTM 25047 and 20047 quadrangles, central Chryse Planitia/Viking 1 Lander site, Mars

By: L.S. Crumpler, R. A. Craddock, and J.C. Aubele

Map and associated documents are available from the USGS Publications Warehouse: https://doi.org/10.3133/i2693

This map is based on data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA; Smith and others, 2001), an instrument on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft (Albee and others, 2001).

Bright scars on a darker surface testify to a long history of impacts on Jupiter's moon Callisto in this image of Callisto from NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

The hemispheric view of Venus, as revealed by more than a decade of radar investigations culminating in the 1990-1994 Magellan mission, is centered at 180 degrees east longitude. The Magellan spacecraft imaged more than 98% of Venus at a resolution of about 100 meters; the effective resolution of this image is about 3 km.

Global color mosaic of Triton, taken in 1989 by Voyager 2 during its flyby of the Neptune system. Color was synthesized by combining high-resolution images taken through orange, violet, and ultraviolet filters; these images were displayed as red, green, and blue images and combined to create this color version.

USGS Investigation Series Map i-2581: Geologic map of Callisto

Io, the most volcanic body in the solar system is seen in the highest resolution obtained to date by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. The smallest features that can be discerned are 2.5 kilometers in size. There are rugged mountains several kilometers high, layered materials forming plateaus, and many irregular depressions called volcanic calderas.

A section of burst tumulus that has fallen away from the larger structure. Tumuli can burst when the influx of lava is rapid compared to the rate at which the crust is thickening by cooling. In these cases the pressure driving the lava is significantly greater than the weight of the overlying crust.