Incredible 3-D View Inside a Martian Crater

By Nancy Atkinson - February 03, 2012 11:03 PM UTC | Planetary Science

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This is why I always keep a pair of 3-D glasses by my computer. This well-preserved crater on Mars may look like just your average, run-of-the-mill impact crater in 2-D, but in 3-D, the sharply raised rim, the deep, cavernous crater body, and especially the steep crater walls will have you grabbing your armchairs so you don't fall in. The image is courtesy of the HiRISE camera team from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This unnamed crater is about 6 or 7 kilometers wide from rim to rim. HiRISE took the image on New Year's Eve 2011.

HiRISE principal investigator Alfred McEwen says that the camera has imaged hundreds of well-preserved impact craters on Mars ranging from 1 meter to more than 100 kilometers wide. What can the scientists learn from craters?

"These targets are of great interest for multiple reasons," he said. "First, we want to better understand impact cratering, a fundamental surface process. Second, such craters often contain good exposures of bedrock in the steep walls and, if the crater is large enough, in the central uplift. Just like terrestrial geologists are attracted to good bedrock outcrops like road cuts, planetary geologists are attracted to well-preserved craters.

"Third, the steep slopes often reveal active processes, such as formation of gullies, boulder falls, and slope streaks that could form in a variety of ways. Some of these active processes could be related to water, since the crater may expose lenses of ice or salty water, or create deep shadows that trap volatiles, or expose salts that can extract water from the air."

Plus, they are just plain wonderful to behold, especially in the resolution the HiRISE can obtain.

[caption id="attachment_93317" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="A non-3-D version of the same image. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona"]

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Source:

HiRISE

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