--- title: "NASA Spots “Dragon” in Stunning Mars Orbiter Image" description: "NASA spotted a \"dragon\" in a image taken by University of Arizona's HiRISE camera attached to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter." date: "2020-04-13" modified: "2020-04-13" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-dragon-mars-orbiter-image" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Mars" - "Science & Energy" - "Space" tags: - "mars" - "mars reconnaissance orbiter" - "mro" - "NASA" - "the digest" --- # NASA Spots “Dragon” in Stunning Mars Orbiter Image ![NASA spotted a "dragon" in a image taken by University of Arizona's HiRISE camera attached to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.]() *\Image: NASA/JPL/UArizona\* ## Year of the Dragon NASA spotted a "dragon" in an image taken by the University of Arizona's HiRISE camera, attached to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Orbiter has been sending back invaluable information about the Red Planet's surface since it first reached Martian orbit back in 2006. "We rotated this image of light-toned blocky material in southwestern Melas Chasma because from this perspective, it resembles a fabled Chinese dragon," reads a Saturday tweet by HiRISE's official Twitter account. https://twitter.com/HiRISE/status/1248959028840955904 ## Canyon Floor The image was first taken on July 4, 2007 from an altitude of 258 km (160 miles). It's not the first unusual shape NASA has spotted on the Martian surface. In 2018, the orbiter's camera spotted what looked like a [Pac-Man]() in mid-gobble. Last year, it spotted a dune in the shape of the ["Star Trek" Starfleet insignia](). ## Massive Canyon The lighter, reddish channel is the floor of Mars' Melas Chasma, a massive canyon that cuts through what is thought to be the remains of an old lake bed. "Along the floor of Melas Chasma is an unusual blocky deposit composed of light-toned blocks in a darker matrix," reads a University of Arizona [blog post](). "The high resolution of the HiRISE image reveals layers only a few meters thick in some of the light-toned blocks. The blocks vary in size but most fall between 100 to 500 meters in diameter." **READ MORE:** [NASA imagines a dragon on Mars in a sinuous, scenic canyon]() \[*CNET*\] **More on weird Mars shapes:** *[NASA Orbiter Spots “Star Trek” Starfleet Insignia on Mars]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()