Out of Round Crater

Scaled Image

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

About this image

Today's VIS image shows part of an unnamed crater located in Terra Sirenum. While the crater in this VIS image was crated by an impact event, the resultant form is not the normal circular shape. There are several factors that can create 'out of round' craters. The most common is subsurface faulting from tectonic activity. Pre-existing subsurface fractures can deflect impact pressures along the fault faces, rather than uniformly radially from the center of impact. Meteor Crater in Arizona has "corners" due to the same tectonic forcing of impact pressures. Not only is the shape of this crater odd, but just how the ridge on the floor formed is unknown.

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

Context

-31.5503
202.964
98798
2024-03-23 07:34
Wed, 2024-06-26
VIS
512 pixels (17 km)
1824 pixels (62 km)
0.034483 km/pixel
0.0350126 km/pixel

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