NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: MSIP: Crater Formation

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Context image credit: NASA/Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Team
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We are the 6th grade MSIP team from Mercury Mine. During our

trip to ASU, we took a picture of an area with many craters of

different sizes and types (preserved, modified, and destroyed) to help

us answer our question: Is there a difference between a crater formed

by an impact on Mars and a force from beneath the planet’s surface

forming a mountain or volcano; and if so, what? Our image was taken

at the latitude of 35.73 S and the longitude of 236.2 E, 695.6

seconds after the THEMIS passed the equator (while descending).

Downloading our image was perhaps the

best part of our trip to ASU.

NASA and Arizona State University’s Mars Education Program is offering students nationwide the opportunity to be involved in authentic Mars research by participating in the Mars Student Imaging Project (MSIP). Teams of students in grades 5 through college sophomore level have the opportunity to work with scientists, mission planners and educators on the THEMIS team at ASU’s Mars Space Flight Facility, to image a site on Mars using the THEMIS visible wavelength camera. For more information go to the MSIP website: http://msip.asu.edu.

[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