NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: Arkhangelsky Crater

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Context image credit: NASA/Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Team
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Arkhangelsky crater is just to the northeast of the giant Argyre impact
basin in the southern hemisphere of Mars. This THEMIS visible image shows
the floor of this crater with a few dark barchan dunes. Dunes form when
wind blows sand across a surface. The barchan dunes shown here form
when there isn’t a whole lot of sand to start with. If there were, other
dune forms would be visible.

[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