Debris Flows I

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Caption:

Debris flow extending down the southwest wall of Janssen K crater (a highlands crater about 16 km in diameter). Image width is 570 meters.

Two separate debris flows extend down the western interior wall of the the impact crater Janssen K (46.1°S, 42.3°E). A portion of one flow is observed in the upper left of the image, and a larger one extends from the bottom center. The bumpy terrain between the two flows is the underlying crater wall. These flows extend from the upper reaches of the inner crater wall (having traveled across ~4.5 km of the inner crater wall) and are composed of loose debris. The debris lobes and the loose rocks cover a sheet of impact melt that fills the crater floor.

Background Info:

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center built and manages the mission for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera was designed to acquire data for landing site certification and to conduct polar illumination studies and global mapping. Operated by Arizona State University, the LROC facility is part of the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE). LROC consists of a pair of narrow-angle cameras (NAC) and a single wide-angle camera (WAC). The mission is expected to return over 70 terabytes of image data.

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