This is not a simple snapshot of Mars, but it is a view similar to what you might see out the window of an airliner flying over the Southwestern United States, scientists say.

The new image was built from data collected by NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Space artist Don Davis is an expert on true-color renderings of planetary and astronomical objects. Davis used his own experience plus true-color Mars images from the Hubble Space Telescope, he performed a manual color balance to match more closely the colors of previous visual Mars observations. He also did some manual smoothing and other image processing to minimize the effects of residual scattered light in the images.

The view is of sunlit cliffs and basaltic sand dunes in southern Melas Chasma.

The basaltic dunes are commonplace on Mars but a rare feature on Earth. The rounded knobs and elongated mesas on the canyon floor show an erosional style as exotic as Utah's Bryce Canyon but wholly familiar on Mars.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University/Cornell University/Don Davis