Mysterious Mars Crater Deposits | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Mysterious Mars Crater Deposits | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

This false-color image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument on Oct. 23, 2022, of the northern plains of Arabia Terra shows craters that contain curious deposits with mysterious shapes and distribution. For instance, the deposits are located on the south sides of the craters, but not usually in the north, and are found only in craters larger than 600 meters in diameter. Scientists suspect that these features formed by sublimation of ice-rich material.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Release Date: Dec. 29, 2022

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