NASA Mars Odyssey THEMIS Image: Wind-sculpted Rocks

Image Context:


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

[ Find on map: CGI version ]

Because it does not rain on Mars, the wind is free to shape the surface to the extent that it becomes
clear even in spacecraft images. This images shows parallel grooves oriented north to south, slowly
eroded by winds of the same alignment. At the bottom of the image, a round mesa is most likely an
inverted crater — that is, a crater that has withstood the wind erosion to such a degree that it remains
on the surrounding plains as a protruding structure, rather than a hole in the ground.

[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