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Today's VIS image shows a double impact - two meteors hitting simultaneously. The two meteors would have started as a single object, at some point prior to impact the object separated into parts. The two parts followed the same path to the surface, hitting at the same time in close proximity. The linear feature at the center is where the shock waves intersect, its straightness showing the impacts were simultaneous (and nearly equal in size). The ejecta created from the impact tends to be focused to the sides of the doublet, often forming a butterfly-like ejecta blanket. The butterfly pattern is most common at oblique angle impacts, but can also form by the interaction of the impact shock waves. These craters are located in Utopia Planitia.

Orbit Number: 72448 Latitude: 27.1977 Longitude: 95.4916 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2018-04-14 13:36

Please see the THEMIS Data Citation Note for details on crediting THEMIS images.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, 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.