This impact crater looks amusingly like a tadpole because of the valley that was carved by water that used to fill it. When the water level inside the crater increased, it breached the crater wall, flowed outward and formed a valley. Sometimes, the water may flow in the opposite direction, like from a channel into a crater.

It is often difficult to differentiate between inlet and outlet channels, but water always flows downhill. In this particular case, we can infer that water is flowing outward because we have the necessary terrain-height information.

When studying these images in detail, scientists can gain a better understanding of the strength of the flooding water that carved the channels, and better understand the history of water activity in this region of Mars.

Written by: M. Ramy El-Maarry (narration: Tre Gibbs)  (5 February 2018)

This is a stereo pair with ESP_052945_2150.