Thursday, February 06, 2014

Newly formed crater spotted by UA's Mars camera

The University of Arizona's HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft captured this picture of a fresh impact crater on the Red (Blue??) Planet last fall, but it was just released this week.  

Cathy Weitz at the HiRISE web site reports that the "Context Camera (CTX) images showed a likely new impact crater formed at this location between July 2010 and May 2012, and now a HiRISE image provides details about this recent impact event.    Our image shows a large, rayed blast zone and far-flung secondary material around an approximately 30 meter-diameter crater, indicating a large explosion threw debris as far as 15 kilometers in distance. Because the terrain where the crater formed is dusty, the fresh crater appears blue in the enhanced color due to the lack of reddish dust."



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