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Dune Field in a Southern Highlands Crater

Sept. 8, 2003
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft captured this image in September 2003, showing dark dunes sit on a rough, eroding sedimentary surface in the floor of a crater on Mars, one of dozens in Noachis Terra, to have both dark dunes and an eroding surface.
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Released 5 September 2003

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.

Image information: VIS instrument. Latitude -40.5, Longitude 34.6 East (325.4 West). 19 meter/pixel resolution.

Note: this THEMIS visual image has not been radiometrically nor geometrically calibrated for this preliminary release. An empirical correction has been performed to remove instrumental effects. A linear shift has been applied in the cross-track and down-track direction to approximate spacecraft and planetary motion. Fully calibrated and geometrically projected images will be released through the Planetary Data System in accordance with Project policies at a later time.

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.

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