HiRISE | Lava Lamp Terrain on the Floor of Hellas Basin (ESP_025780

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Lava Lamp Terrain on the Floor of Hellas Basin
ESP_025780_1415 Science Theme: Composition and Photometry

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Some of the weirdest and least-understood landscapes on Mars are on the floor of the deep Hellas impact basin. This image was acquired in northwest Hellas where depths are more than 6 kilometers below the reference (or roughly the average) altitude for Mars.

There are what look like impact craters but are elongated, as if stretched in a viscous manner (like in a lava lamp). Some of the flowing landforms are similar to those elsewhere in the middle latitudes of Mars, where the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) experiment on MRO has detected ice, but no ice detection has been reported here.

The floor of Hellas is relatively poorly mapped because it is often obscured by dust and haze in the atmosphere.

Written by: Alfred McEwen (28 March 2012)

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Acquisition date:	26 January 2012	Local Mars time:	3:07 PM
Latitude (centered):	-37.986 degrees	Longitude (East):	53.756 degrees
Range to target site:	259.3 km (162.1 miles)	Original image scale range:	51.9 cm/pixel (with 2 x 2 binning) so objects ~156 cm across are resolved
Map projected scale:	50 cm/pixel and North is up	Map projection:	EQUIRECTANGULAR
Emission angle:	3.3 degrees	Phase angle:	76.7 degrees
Solar incidence angle:	74 degrees, with the Sun about 16 degrees above the horizon	Solar longitude:	62.0 degrees, Northern Spring
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North azimuth:	97 degrees	Sub-solar azimuth:	51.4 degrees
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North azimuth:	270 degrees	Sub solar azimuth:	224.3 degrees

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For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov. 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. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. The image data were processed using the U.S. Geological Survey’s ISIS3 software.