NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS image: Upside-down craters

Image Context:


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

[ Find on map: CGI version ]

This image shows an area not too far south of Meridiani, the area where the mineral hematite
was found on the Martian surface. In the center of the image the terrain becomes quite rugged,
where a great amount of material has eroded away, leaving behind buttes and mesas. Note how
some of the mesas are quite circular. This is an example of “inverted terrain”, in which a topographically
low feature, like a crater or a trench, becomes filled in with material. Later, the surrounding terrain
erodes away while the feature protects the material filling it. These circular mesas are most likely
inverted craters that were once holes in the ground.

[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