NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: Spallanzani’s Neighbor

Image Context:


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

[ Find on map: CGI version ]

Along the southeast rim of the Hellas Basin, a 27 km diameter crater
hosts an eroded layered deposit like many of the neighboring craters.
Compared to the weirdly-shaped remnants of the deposit in the adjacent
Spallanzani Crater, the layers in this image are more
subdued. It is not clear why material deposited into and eroded from
two craters so close together would appear so different.

[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