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Investigating Mars: Arabia Terra Dunes

March 22, 2018
The small crater in the middle of the image is at the upwind side of the dune field. There is a considerable amount of sand within the crater, with a relatively smooth surface and few dune forms. This image is from NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft.
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The small crater in the middle of the image is at the upwind side of the dune field. There is a considerable amount of sand within the crater, with a relatively smooth surface and few dune forms. It is likely that this crater provides a source of available sand for the large dune field.

Located in eastern Arabia is an unnamed crater, 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. The floor of this crater contains a large exposure of rocky material, a field of dark sand dunes, and numerous patches of what is probably fine-grain sand. The shape of the dunes indicate that prevailing winds have come from different directions over the years.

The Odyssey spacecraft has spent over 15 years in orbit around Mars, circling the planet more than 71,000 times. It holds the record for longest working spacecraft at Mars. THEMIS, the IR/VIS camera system, has collected data for the entire mission and provides images covering all seasons and lighting conditions. Over the years many features of interest have received repeated imaging, building up a suite of images covering the entire feature. From the deepest chasma to the tallest volcano, individual dunes inside craters and dune fields that encircle the north pole, channels carved by water and lava, and a variety of other feature, THEMIS has imaged them all. For the next several months the image of the day will focus on the Tharsis volcanoes, the various chasmata of Valles Marineris, and the major dunes fields. We hope you enjoy these images!

Orbit Number: 39546 Latitude: 26.7963 Longitude: 62.7506 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2010-11-13 13:31

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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