Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: Crater Chains

Image Context:


Context image credit: NASA/Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Team
[ Find on map: Javascript version ]

[ Find on map: CGI version ]

The large crater at the top of this THEMIS visible image has several other
craters inside of it. Most noticeable are the craters that form a
“chain”
on the southern wall of the large crater. These craters are a wonderful
example of secondary impacts. They were formed when large blocks of
ejecta from an impact crashed back down onto the surface of Mars.
Secondaries often form radial patterns around the impact crater that
generated them, allowing researchers to trace them back to their origin.

[Source: ASU THEMIS Science Team]

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen at Arizona State University. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University