Mars: A Light-Toned Deposit in Arsinoes Chaos | NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
The objective of this observation is to examine a light-toned deposit in a region of chaos terrain. The deposit displays a rough surface, in contrast to the smoothness of the surounding area. Parts of the surface appear as if they were eroded by a fluid flowing north and south. This deposit may have formed in an ancient lake.
Arsinoes Chaos is a chaos terrain in the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle on Mars. This region of Mars is famous because NASA's Opportunity Rover landed there on January 25, 2004. Arsinoes Chaos is 200 kilometers in diameter. Its location is 7.66 °S and 27.9 °W. Arsinoes Chaos was named after Arsinoe, a queen of ancient Egypt, daughter of Ptolemy and Berenice.
Buttes and mesas in Arsinoes display layering. Many places on Mars show rocks arranged in layers that can form in a variety of ways. Volcanoes, wind, or water can produce them. Of course, layers can be hardened by the action of groundwater. Martian ground water probably moved hundreds of kilometers, and in the process it dissolved many minerals from the rock it passed through. When ground water surfaces in low areas containing sediments, water evaporates in the thin atmosphere and leaves behind minerals as deposits and/or cementing agents. Consequently, layers of dust could not later easily erode away since they were cemented together. On Earth, mineral-rich waters often evaporate forming large deposits of various types of salts and other minerals.
This HiRISE enhanced color camera image (less than 1 km in size) was captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) at an altitude of 269 kilometers (167 miles).
The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). It was built by BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), Washington.
Image Date: Aug. 12, 2025
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