There’s Something Odd Here

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Caption:

Context image

This VIS image shows a portion of Noachis Terra to the northeast of Argyre Planitia. In the middle of the image is an unnamed crater that is not even close to being round. Instead the crater has a rim that bulges out on the west side. The ejecta is still visible, so this is an impact crater, but the odd shape points to surface properties that affected the crater formation. In regions with large amount of tectonic features, the subsurface faults and structures can displace impact energy along the planes of the subsurface faults. In uniform subsurfaces the energy propagates uniformly as a spherical wave. Meteor Crater in northern Arizona is an earth example of such subsurface control - it is square rather than round. The oval form to the left of the crater may have been formed by an oblique impact - when a meteor hits the surface at a low angle.

Orbit Number: 74623 Latitude: -33.1841 Longitude: 330.888 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2018-10-10 17:11

Background Info:

Please see the THEMIS Data Citation Note for details on crediting THEMIS images.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen at Arizona State University. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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