Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

This amazing image is not tree bark — it’s Mars. Click here for image downloading options. (It’s quite large.)

Martian landforms have been shaped by winds, water, lava flow, seasonal icing and other forces over millennia. This view shows color variations in bright layered deposits on a plateau near Juventae Chasma in the Valles Marineris region of Mars. A brown mantle covers portions of the bright deposits. Researchers have found that these bright layered deposits contain opaline silica and iron sulfates.