Eroded Step Massif in Cydonia Mensae
HiRISE PICTURE OF THE DAY: 16 JULY 2026

An Eroded Step Massif in Cydonia Mensae

From HiWish: “Looking along the images of this entire area, I’m struck by how much these stepped massifs look as though they may have been islands in a shallow sea. I’ll be scanning and requesting images for what I suspect to be a former coastline and looking at these massifs for further clues. There is not much HiRISE coverage of this area, and it’s pretty large and covered with features like this.”



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

Layers in Claritas Fossae
The objective of this observation is to determine the nature of a group of exposed layers. They seem to be from material sitting at the bottom of a trough instead of in the trough walls. Located between the lava plains of Daedalia Planum and Solis Planum, Claritas Fossae is a graben-filled highland and was formed prior to the large lava flows of the Tharsis region.