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Tempe Fossae

May 22, 2012
The floor of the crater at the top of this image from NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft is completely covered by a large sand sheet with surface dune forms. Now that is it near the end of northern spring all the frost has disappeared from the sand.
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Today's VIS image is shows a small portion of Tempe Fossae. The fossae is comprised of paired, parallel fractures with a down-dropped block between the fracture set.

Orbit Number: 45542 Latitude: 36.025 Longitude: 278.527 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2012-03-21 04:01

Please see the THEMIS Data Citation Note for details on crediting THEMIS images.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, 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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