4 August 2006
This This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a bowl-shaped crater on the martian northern plains with a mysterious radiant pattern of zones with and without boulders and rocks. The rocky areas are seen as dark dots, the rock-free areas lack these spots. Craters like this are fairly common on the northern plains; some also occur at a similar latitudes in the southern hemisphere. When the Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) team first saw these, earlier this decade, they called them "pinwheel craters" (see
PIA05611
). The exact cause of the boulder and streak distribution is uncertain.
Location near
: 61.3°N, 88.4°W
Image width
: ~3 km (~1.9 mi)
Illumination from
: lower left
Season
: Northern Spring
Name | Value | Additional Values |
---|---|---|
Target | Mars | |
System | ||
Target Type | Planet | |
Mission | Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) | 2001 Mars Odyssey |
Instrument Host | Mars Global Surveyor | Mars Odyssey |
Host Type | Orbiter | |
Instrument | Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) | |
Detector | ||
Extra Keywords | Crater, Grayscale, Thermal | |
Acquisition Date | ||
Release Date | 2006-08-04 | |
Date in Caption | 2006-08-04 | |
Image Credit | NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems | |
Source | photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08639 | |
Identifier | PIA08639 |