In a scene straight out of a science fiction movie NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released images taken by their Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft showing Martian avalanches, in progress, near the north pole of the red planet.

NASA says these false color pictures were taken February 19th by the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Experiment, or HiRISE system, as the robotic spaceship was surveying the polar region to monitor seasonal changes in the carbon-dioxide or CO2 frost.

The space agency claims the pictures are the first ever taken of an active avalanche on Mars, and comprise at least four separate slides of ice and dust along a 700 meter or 2,300 foot high slope. The largest debris cloud is 590 feet or 180 meters across.

The exact cause of the landslide is not yet known says NASA but theories include changes in temperature, CO2 evaporation, a Mars-quake or impact by a Meteorite.

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