NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: A Diminutive Volcano

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Context image credit: NASA/Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Team
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The small Tharsis volcano called Biblis Patera is nearly lost amongst its gigantic neighbors. With a height of less than 10,000 feet, it is even dwarfed by many volcanoes on Earth. The gaping caldera of Biblis Patera shows evidence for multiple episodes of collapse, producing the concentric topography seen in the image. Several slope streaks are visible, indicators of a more recent and much smaller form of collapse: avalanches of the dust that thickly mantles the terrain.

[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