A Tale of Two Craters
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
A Tale of Two Craters
ESP_013799_1755  Science Theme: Impact Processes
The two craters in this subimage are of similar size but have very different appearances. This is because they are different ages. Can you tell which is older?

Sometimes you can tell something about relative ages using a geologic principle called "superposition." This means that something that formed later than another feature will overlie the older feature. For example, a younger crater would have its ejecta emplaced on top of an older crater. That particular situation is not very obvious in this image, although you might be able to see hints of it if you look closely at the high-resolution JPEG2000.

There are still a few more obvious clues to their relative ages, though. The larger crater (approximately 45 meters, or 150 feet across) is shallower relative to its size, and it has a rim that is more subdued and “softer” looking. It also has a distinct texture on its floor. These could be ripples or small dunes formed by air-blown dust or sand, which would require a long time to form. The smaller crater (10 meters or 30 feet across) does not appear to have any such patterns in its floor, indicating that it is probably younger.

Another clue is the dark area surrounding the smaller crater. This is an area where either lighter surface dust was removed by the impact event, or where darker ejecta was blown out of the crater, forming extended streaks. You can even see very tiny grooves extending radially from the smaller crater, where material was thrown out at a low angle, scraping the surface or creating lines of tiny “secondary” craters where clumps of ejecta impacted the surface. These types of features are very fresh. They do not last a long time on the Martian surface, where wind blows dust around and fairly quickly (in a geologic sense) erases or covers up fine features like these. So these are more clues that the smaller crater is relatively young and fresh-looking.

If this were not enough evidence, we also happen to have an image of this spot from 2005. This image from HRSC (the High Resolution Stereo Camera on the Mars Express spacecraft) shows the same scene, and the dark area around the smaller crater had not yet formed when that image was taken. Since these dark areas form around new craters, this supports our conclusion based merely on the appearance of the two craters, that the smaller one is younger.

Written by: Ingrid Daubar  (2 March 2011)
 
Acquisition date
06 July 2009

Local Mars time
14:28

Latitude (centered)
-4.376°

Longitude (East)
264.607°

Spacecraft altitude
255.4 km (158.8 miles)

Original image scale range
25.6 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~77 cm across are resolved

Map projected scale
25 cm/pixel and North is up

Map projection
Equirectangular

Emission angle
1.2°

Phase angle
38.9°

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

Solar longitude
298.5°, Northern Winter

For non-map projected images
North azimuth:  97°
Sub-solar azimuth:  336.5°
JPEG
Black and white
map projected  non-map

IRB color
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Merged IRB
map projected

Merged RGB
map projected

RGB color
non-map projected

JP2
Black and white
map-projected   (161MB)

IRB color
map-projected   (163MB)

JP2 EXTRAS
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map-projected  (75MB)
non-map           (102MB)

IRB color
map projected  (47MB)
non-map           (202MB)

Merged IRB
map projected  (48MB)

Merged RGB
map-projected  (43MB)

RGB color
non map           (188MB)
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.