NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: Charlier Crater Dunes

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Context image credit: NASA/Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Team
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A crater named after a Swedish astronomer hosts a dune field that is brightened by a layer of frost. Although the crater is located at high southern latitudes, it is probably too late in the spring season for the dunes to retain the CO2 frost that forms during the southern winter; water ice is a better candidate for the dune frost.

[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