NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: Kaiser Crater DCS

Image Context:


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

[ Find on map: CGI version ]

This image shows two representations of the same infra-red image covering

a portion of Kaiser Crater. On the left is a grayscale image showing

surface temperature, and on the right is a false-color composite made

from 3 individual THEMIS bands. The false-color image is colorized

using a technique called decorrelation stretch (DCS), which emphasizes

the spectral differences between the bands to highlight compositional

variations.

In this image, the basaltic sand dunes in bottom of Kaiser crater are colored a bright pink/magenta. The spectral features are clean and prominent on these dust-free surfaces and the dark color of the basaltic dunes helps them to absorb sunlight and produces higher surface temperatures, which also contributes to the image colors.

[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