Epically awesome photos of Mars

Movie goers across the country will get the chance to see Matt Damon trek across "Mars" on Friday, Oct. 2 when the highly-anticipated film "The Martian" premiers in theaters nationwide.

Unfortunately, Damon is not actually on Mars (obviously). Instead, that iconic red-stained sand and those rocky plateaus are just a mock-up.

But we've got the real thing.

Since 2006, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft has been orbiting Mars snapping pictures of the surface with its HiRISE camera. Here's a collection of some of the most incredible images the camera has taken over the years.

The HiRISE images shown here have false coloring that highlights distinct Martian features, like sand dunes shown in the image to the right. The false-coloring helps scientists see how the grooves and troughs of these features change over time.