Collapse Pit

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Caption:

Map Projected Browse Image
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Do you see a dome or a pit? Sometimes it is hard to tell! In this case, the answer is that we're looking at a pit, if the title didn't already give it away.

Levity aside, we can tell this is a pit because we know what direction the sunlight is coming from and which side should be in shadow. This pit has formed on the south polar layered deposits . Why did it collapse? That is the real question to be answered.

The map is projected here at a scale of 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) per pixel. (The original image scale is 49.6 centimeters [19.5 inches] per pixel [with 2 x 2 binning]; objects on the order of 149 centimeters [58.7 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.

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