NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: Cerberus Fossae 08-30-2004

Image Context:


Context image credit: NASA/Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Team
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The THEMIS Image of the Day will be exploring the nomenclature of Mars for the next three weeks.

Cerberus Fossae

• Fossae: long, narrow, shallow depressions
• Cerberus: The three-headed watchdog that guarded the

  entrance to Hades. Cerberus was the child of

  a giant and a half-woman/half-snake.

Cerberus Fossae is comprised of two east/west oriented linear

depressions. One of these depressions is shown in the

VIS mosaic above. The region surrounding the depression

is mainly volcanic in nature.

Nomenclature Fact of the Day: Since the planet Venus is named

for the Roman goddess of love, its features are named

with female names. Large craters are named for famous

women, small craters are named with female first names,

and other features are named for mythological goddesses

of many cultures.

[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