Released 9 September 2003

Along the southeast rim of the Hellas Basin, a 27 km diameter crater hosts an eroded layered deposit like many of the neighboring craters. Compared to the weirdly-shaped remnants of the deposit in the adjacent Spallanzani Crater, the layers in this image are more subdued. It is not clear why material deposited into and eroded from two craters so close together would appear so different.

Image information: VIS instrument. Latitude -57.6, Longitude 84.7 East (275.3 West). 19 meter/pixel resolution.

Note: this THEMIS visual image has not been radiometrically nor geometrically calibrated for this preliminary release. An empirical correction has been performed to remove instrumental effects. A linear shift has been applied in the cross-track and down-track direction to approximate spacecraft and planetary motion. Fully calibrated and geometrically projected images will be released through the Planetary Data System in accordance with Project policies at a later time.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen at Arizona State University. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.