Touring a Dusty Region
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
Touring a Dusty Region
ESP_034259_2040  Science Theme: Impact Processes
Dusty regions on Mars are often considered to look boring in HiRISE images because the dust obscures surface features. However, new meteor impacts are found most easily in dusty regions such as the one in this image because the new impacts blast away the dust at the surface, leaving obvious dark spots that can be seen in images from the MRO’s Context Camera. HiRISE will then take a close up image of the dark spots to image any new craters that have formed as a result of the impact.

As well as confirming a new impact, this image also showed other features commonly found in dusty areas: slope streaks and bed-forms. A close-up picture of the roughly 2.5-kilometer-diameter crater at the bottom of the main image shows ridges on the crater floor where dust has become trapped, and bright and dark streaks down the crater walls where dust has cascaded down the slope.

Written by: HiRISE Targeting Specialists (narration: Tre Gibbs)  (4 June 2014)
 
Acquisition date
17 November 2013

Local Mars time
14:50

Latitude (centered)
23.662°

Longitude (East)
39.953°

Spacecraft altitude
283.5 km (176.2 miles)

Original image scale range
28.6 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~86 cm across are resolved

Map projected scale
25 cm/pixel and North is up

Map projection
Equirectangular

Emission angle
7.8°

Phase angle
47.4°

Solar incidence angle
40°, with the Sun about 50° above the horizon

Solar longitude
50.5°, Northern Spring

For non-map projected images
North azimuth:  97°
Sub-solar azimuth:  8.0°
JPEG
Black and white
map projected  non-map

IRB color
map projected  non-map

Merged IRB
map projected

Merged RGB
map projected

RGB color
non-map projected

JP2
Black and white
map-projected   (457MB)

IRB color
map-projected   (227MB)

JP2 EXTRAS
Black and white
map-projected  (193MB)
non-map           (235MB)

IRB color
map projected  (61MB)
non-map           (198MB)

Merged IRB
map projected  (117MB)

Merged RGB
map-projected  (112MB)

RGB color
non map           (189MB)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
B&W label
Color label
Merged IRB label
Merged RGB label
EDR products
HiView

NB
IRB: infrared-red-blue
RGB: red-green-blue
About color products (PDF)

Black & white is 5 km across; enhanced color about 1 km
For scale, use JPEG/JP2 black & white map-projected images

USAGE POLICY
All of the images produced by HiRISE and accessible on this site are within the public domain: there are no restrictions on their usage by anyone in the public, including news or science organizations. We do ask for a credit line where possible:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

POSTSCRIPT
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. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.