[meteorite-list] Tall Boulder Rolls Down Martian Hill, Lands Upright (MRO)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 14:57:43 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201408132157.s7DLvhdt007712_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-275

Tall Boulder Rolls Down Martian Hill, Lands Upright
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 13, 2014

A track about one-third of a mile (500 meters) long on Mars shows where
an irregularly shaped boulder careened downhill to its current upright
position, seen in a July 3, 2014, image from the High Resolution Imaging
Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter.

The image is available online at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA18594

The shadow cast by the rock in mid-afternoon sunlight reveals it is
about 20 feet (6 meters) tall. In the downward-looking image, the
boulder is only about 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) wide. It happened to come
to rest with its long dimension vertical. The trail it left on the slope
has a pattern that suggests the boulder couldn't roll smoothly or
straight due to its shape.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute
of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. HiRISE, one of six
science instruments on the orbiter, is operated by the University of
Arizona, Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado.

For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has
been studying Mars from orbit since 2006, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mro

For more information about HiRISE, visit:

http://www.uahirise.org/

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2014-275
Received on Wed 13 Aug 2014 05:57:43 PM PDT