Investigating Mars: Rabe Crater

Scaled Image

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

About this image

In this VIS image of the floor of Rabe Crater the step down into the pit is visible in the sinuous ridges on the left side of the image. The appearance of the exposed side of the cliffs does not look like a volcanic, difficult to erode material, but rather an easy to erode material such as layered sediments.

Rabe Crater is 108 km (67 miles) across. Craters of similar size often have flat floors. Rabe Crater has some areas of flat floor, but also has a large complex pit occupying a substantial part of the floor. The interior fill of the crater is thought to be layered sediments created by wind and or water action. The pit is eroded into this material. The eroded materials appear to have stayed within the crater forming a large sand sheet with surface dune forms as well as individual dunes where the crater floor is visible. The dunes also appear to be moving from the upper floor level into the pit.

The Odyssey spacecraft has spent over 15 years in orbit around Mars, circling the planet more than 69000 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!

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

Context

Image ID: 
V34456003 (View data in Mars Image Explorer)
-43.7164
34.4056
34456
2009-09-20 09:38
Tue, 2017-12-12
VIS
1024 pixels (24 km)
3648 pixels (69 km)
0.019165 km/pixel
0.0237119 km/pixel

Downloads

PNG | JPEG (high res) | JPEG (reduced res) | PDF | TIFF