Space

Says a lot for how much they were able to accomplish thematically with environments like that. Iconic

Captured on my Samsung Galaxy s22

Mars has blue sunsets though.

If only he would tell us why he had to hide away, for so long :(

I've been to the Vasquez Rocks where that was shot. It's right by a freeway that definitely also existed in the 60s. They had to use some very creative camera work in terms of where they pointed it. It's kind of impressive.

Looking for a big rock

They're gorn.

I believe it's the Atacama desert in Chile, according to a reverse image search.

It's just the ray tracing

Those particular rocks seem to be sandstone, though... which would pretty much be proof of liquid water having existed at some point.

Rocks are rocks, sure... but rocks tell stories, and these ones are telling a story that, while common and somewhat uninteresting on Earth, is quite interesting indeed when told on Mars.

Interesting that Dean Norris was on Mars and has a special interest in ~~rocks~~ minerals.

That's how I figured which was which (I don't have the ability to quickly figure out left from right like most people have, so that left me time to play at guessing).

Yup!

Sediment gathers at the bottom of a lake or sea. Builds up deeper and deeper layers. Each layer is formed by a sediment deposition event. Each layer you go down is going further into the past of that former water body.

Because sedimentary rock requires standing bodies of liquid to form, they are only found on Earth and Mars (and maybe Dragonfly will find sedimentary deposits on Titan which would be very different in chemistry).

I’m not a geologist but I’ve read up on it a fair bit.

This Mars photo appears to be sandstone.

On earth sandstone is usually associated with ancient rivers, lake shores, and sea shores. But also sand dune fields.

The thing with sandstone though, is it’s not just sand. Rather, it’s sand plus time plus pressure plus cementation.

Now, the time part is obvious. What’s sandstone now was sand a long ass time ago (usually).

Pressure? That’s a little harder to understand for me here. Has mars ever had tectonic stuff going on to bury it (and hence have pressure applied), followed by erosion and uplift? Or am I incorrect and pressure is not a necessary condition? Maybe sandstone without pressure is a thing it’s just weaker and/or less dense? Maybe layers of volcanic basalt or something could have a similar effect? I don’t know and would love to have someone more knowledgeable fill this part out.

Cementation? This part, I’m nearly certain, REQUIRES water. On earth anyway, this happens when ground water absorbs chemicals from other rock/stuff (for example carbonates from sea shells, but there’s lots of other chemicals that can do this), then flows through the beds of buried sand, and some of those chemicals are deposited along with magical chemistry stuff happening, and your sand becomes sand stone.

So I don’t 100% know that the short answer to your question is “yes”, but I’m leaning towards a solid “yeah, probably, but I’m not a real geologist and Mars isn’t a real Earth so I dunno”.

I could be wrong, but I don't think so in this case. Water would likely create more variation in banding where some groupings of layers is present and distinct. What I see in the differences at higher levels appears to be from exposure to wind and solar temperature fluctuations due to exposure. It looks too linear from top to bottom. With water I expect those more distinct sections of banding like you see on the Earth pic side. Maybe there was a lot more or less rain for a time due to a mountain range that came and went, or a local sea or large water basin. Those layers are deep time and more like the slow accumulation of an average dust before wind patterns shift significantly or some event shifts the composition like exposure of a different large rock unit to winds regionally. It is hard for humans to grasp deep time like this.