NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: Dune field in a southern highlands crater

Image Context:


Context image credit: NASA/Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Team
[ Find on map: Javascript version ]

[ Find on map: CGI version ]

Dark dunes sit on a rough, eroding sedimentary surface in the floor of
an 83 km diameter crater. This crater is one of dozens in Noachis Terra,
in the southern highlands of Mars, to have both dark dunes and an eroding
surface. Note how the dunes seem to ignore the underlying rough surface
in some cases, while in other places the dunes seem to have wrapped themselves
around sharp knobs.

[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