JavaScript is required
JPL Logo
Image

A Pair of New Impact Craters

May 14, 2018
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows two new craters on Mars with the same distinctive pattern of relatively blue ejecta surrounded by a dark blast zone and arcing patterns. This pattern indicates an oblique impact angle with a bolide.
Context Image
The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel.
[The original image scale is 27.4 centimeters (10.8 inches) per pixel (with 1 x 1 binning); objects on the order of 82 centimeters (32.3 inches) across are resolved.] North is up.

This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows two new craters, both with the same distinctive pattern of relatively blue (less red) ejecta surrounded by a dark blast zone (where dust has been removed or disturbed), and with arcing patterns extending northwest and northeast. This pattern indicates an oblique impact angle with the bolide coming from the north.

MRO has discovered over 700 new impact sites on Mars. Often, a bolide breaks apart in the atmosphere and makes a tight cluster of new craters.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Keep Exploring