See, every 26 months, Mars and the sun are on the opposites sides of the Earth, giving MRO a strong, unobstructed connection to its ground team for a few weeks. That allows the satellite to beam a hefty amount of data back home. It just so happened that this event, which occurred in May this year, coincided with the period wherein the sun shines directly on the Martian equator. Since that lights the planet up from north to south pole, it gives HiRise a better view of our neighbor than usual. NASA will use all the photos MRO takes to find the best landing sites for future missions, such as the InSight lander.

The rather haunting image above features the steep slopes of the Hebes Chasma, while the one below shows a dune field in the North Pole called the Kolhar. These are but two of the many, many images HiRise sent back, though. If you want to look through every single one of them, check them out on HiRise's official website.

[Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona]