Brand New Impact Crater Shows Up on Mars

By Nancy Atkinson - February 5, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC | Planetary Science
ESP_034285_1835.jpg

The great thing about the longevity of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is that we can see changes taking place on the Red Planet, such as this relatively new and rather large impact crater. This image shows a stunning 30-meter-wide crater with a rayed blast zone and far-flung secondary material surrounding. Scientists say the impact and resulting explosion threw debris as far as 15 kilometers in distance.

Before and after pictures of this region show the new impact crater formed between July 2010 and May 2012.

The image has been enhanced in false color and so the fresh crater appears blue because of the lack of reddish dust that covers most of Mars' surface.

With MRO's help, scientists have been able to estimate that Mars gets pummeled with about 200 impacts per year, but most are much smaller than this new one.

The usual procedure for finding new craters is that MRO's Context Camera, or CTX, or cameras on other orbiters identify anomalies or dark spots that appear in new images and then MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera is targeted to follow up by imaging those dark spots in greater detail.

More info on this new image can be found

here.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com