Happy St. Valentine’s Day from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Context Camera (CTX) team!

This picture of a landform that somewhat resembles a Valentine’s Day heart was acquired nearly two months ago by the CTX on 23 December 2007. The heart is about 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) across. The feature is located among lava flows southeast of the giant Tharsis volcano, Ascraeus Mons. The picture is a sub-frame of CTX image P14_006600_1881_XI_08N102W_071223 and is located near 8.3°N, 101.9°W. North is toward the top/upper right and sunlight illuminates the scene from the left/upper left.

Over the past nine years, Malin Space Science Systems has featured other heart-shaped martian landforms, but previously they were all seen in images acquired by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC). These previous examples can be viewed by clicking on the following links:

Valentine 2006 14 February 2006
Martian Valentine’s Day 14 February 2005
Happy Valentine’s Day 2004 14 February 2004
Happy Valentine’s Day From Mars! 11 February 2000
From Mars, With Love 17 June 1999

Citation and Credit
The image(s) and caption are value-added products. MSSS personnel processed the images and wrote the caption information. While the image(s) are in the Public Domain, NASA/JPL/MSSS requests that you credit the source of the image(s). Re-use of the caption text without credit is plagiarism. Please give the proper credit for use of the image(s) and/or caption.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
—or—
NASA/JPL/MSSS

To cite the image(s) and caption information in a paper or report:
Malin, M. C., M. R. Kennedy, and J. A. Lougen (2008), Happy Valentine’s Day from MRO CTX, Malin Space Science Systems Captioned Image Release, MSSS-17, http://www.msss.com/msss_images/2008/02/14/.

Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) built and operates the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Mars Color Imager (MARCI) and Context Camera (CTX). MSSS also built and operated the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC). In addition, MSSS built the Mars Odyssey (ODY) Thermal Emission Imaging Spectrometer (THEMIS) Visible (VIS) camera subsystem, which shares optics with the thermal infrared instrument and is operated at Arizona State University (ASU). MSSS built the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) for the Phoenix Mars Scout lander and in 2008 is designing a camera for the 2011 Juno Mission to Jupiter and is completing camera systems for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover mission and the 2008 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).