Shadows

Today's VIS image shows part of a central pit crater located in Hesperia Planum. The dark patterns on the floor of the crater are the shadows being cast by the crater rim in the early morning sun. This is a fairly young crater, and the rim is still very rough. Shadow lengths can sometimes be used to calculate the height of the object casting the shadow if the sun angle is known.

Orbit Number: 88007 Latitude: -14.5681 Longitude: 113.654 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2021-10-16 19:07

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.