For 15 years the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has transformed our view of the Red Planet
IMPACT: During its 15 years in orbit around the Red Planet, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter witnessed hundreds of new craters that had just been blasted into existence. This eight- meter-wide impact crater was discovered by the spacecraft’s Context Camera in 2016—and it wasn’t there on an earlier pass in 2012. Mars gets hit by more asteroids than Earth does because its relatively thin atmosphere offers far less protection. / ALL IMAGES BY NASA, JPL AND UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
