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PIA21576: Is that an Impact Crater?
This image was acquired by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to take a closer look at a circular feature that might be an impact structure on the South Polar layered deposits.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) 
 Spacecraft:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
 Instrument:  HiRISE 
 Product Size:  2880 x 1800 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  University of Arizona/HiRISE-LPL 
 Other  
Information: 		 Other products from ESP_049075_0995 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA21576.tif (5.191 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA21576.jpg (1.411 MB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

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Map Projected Browse Image
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This image was acquired to take a closer look at a circular feature that might be an impact structure on the South Polar layered deposits.

Measuring the sizes and frequency of impact craters provides a constraint on the age of the landscape. However, craters in icy terrain are modified by processes that flatten and change them in such a manner that it is hard to say for sure if it had an impact origin.

The map is projected here at a scale of 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) per pixel. [The original image scale is 49.8 centimeters (19.6 inches) per pixel (with 2 x 2 binning); objects on the order of 150 centimeters (59 inches) across are resolved.] North is up.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Image Addition Date:
2017-04-04