NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: Layers in Meridiani Planum

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Context image credit: NASA/Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Team
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Less than 100 km from an outlier of the hematite deposit, a 30 km-diameter crater displays layers of eroding material, none of which contains hematite. The layers are evident from their variation in brightness and texture. At least four are apparent, with the lowermost one occurring in the upper right of the frame and the uppermost one extending out of the crater onto the surrounding plain.

[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