NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: Craters modified by ice

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Context image credit: NASA/Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Team
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These craters, located in the southern highland heavily cratered terrain, show
heavy degradation, most likely caused by the presence of water ice. A smaller crater
is located in the floor of a larger crater, showing lobate ejecta thought to be created
by water melted by the force of the impacting body. Gullies on the northern rim of
the smaller crater may indicate accumulations of snow and subsequent melting. In
the larger crater, the northern rim is greatly softened, with sinuous features suggestive
of downslope flow, also potentially caused by creep of ground ice.

[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