PIA23847: Colorful Bedrock in a Northern Plains Crater


Colorful Bedrock in a Northern Plains Crater

Caption:

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Map Projected Browse Image
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This image covers the inside of an impact crater on the northern plains of Mars. It was intended to provide a baseline image of sand dunes on the crater floor, which could be monitored for potential motion in future pictures.

Much more than sand is visible. The dark, undulating dunes sit atop a colorful surface of exposed bedrock . Based on the crater's diameter of roughly 25 kilometers, these rocks may have been previously buried over a mile beneath the surface. The varying colors likely reflect diverse mineral compositions. (The CRISM instrument, also on MRO, has detected different minerals in the neighboring larger Micoud Crater, whose rim lies about 50 kilometers east-southeast of this image.)

Excavated by impact, the colorful rocks here remain visible in part thanks to the winds that shape the overlying sand dunes, which help to sweep the crater's center clear of surface dust.

The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. (The original image scale is 30.6 centimeters [12.0 inches] per pixel [with 1 x 1 binning]; objects on the order of 92 centimeters [36.2 inches] across are resolved.) North is up.

Background Info:

The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Mars
System
Target Type Planet
Mission Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
Instrument Host Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM)
Detector
Extra Keywords Color, Crater, Dune, Dust, Impact, Map
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2020-04-06
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23847
Identifier PIA23847