PIA19290: Tangential Craters within Ptolemaeus Crater


Tangential Craters within Ptolemaeus Crater

Caption:

Click here for larger version of PIA19290
Map Projected Browse Image
Click on the image for larger version

This image shows two small craters , just touching on their rims, in the much larger Ptolmaeus Crater, which is located in the Martian Southern hemisphere. These craters are called "tangential craters."

The more degraded and filled-in crater is approximately 3 kilometers in diameter, and there is an unusual feature near the center. A closeup shows the feature is approximately 76 meters wide and 164 meters long. This feature is also possibly a substantially oblique impact crater, but its origin remains unknown.

Background Info:

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, 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)
Detector
Extra Keywords Crater, Grayscale, Impact, Map
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2015-02-04
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19290
Identifier PIA19290