“What I Did on my Summer Vacation”
From Scientific American, Nov. 23, 1877.
”[…] My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination—it was Mars, the god of war… As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void…”
— Edgar Rice Burroughs
[Earth, seen from Mars, photo taken by the Mars Curiosity Rover]
A very recent impact crater on Mars, formed between July 2010 and May 2012 and captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera in November of 2013.
The crater is approximately 30m in diameter; the explosion threw ejecta up to 15km from the impact site. Areas in which the red Martian dust has been blown away show as blue in the HiRISE image.
The wheels of the Curiosity rover covered in Martian dust. Image taken by Curiosity’s MAHLI instrument.
Periodic bedrock ridges on Mars; a geologic feature found on Mars, but not on Earth.
These ridges are etched into the bedrock of the planet, and run perpendicular to the direction of the prevailing wind.