'Murray Buttes' Mesa . photonado

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'Murray Buttes' Mesa

This image, taken with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, shows a mesa within the "Murray Buttes" area on Mars showing a complex fracture pattern (black arrow) protruding from the eroding rock. This mesa, which likely represents a remnant of crater floor sediments, lies on top of the sedimentary rocks of the Murray Formation. NASA's Curiosity rover will be exploring this formation. HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Science Laboratory projects for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Image released by NASA on 2014-09-11 as catalog id PIA18783