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Located in Noachis Terra, Asimov Crater has an unusual crater floor morphology. At some point after the crater formed, the interior was filled by materials that reached almost to the top of the crater rim. At some later point, deep depressions formed along the inner crater rim. Channels dissect both sides of these depressions. The mechanism of both the filling of the crater and the formation of the depressions is not known. Two other nearby craters also have filled floors and interior depressions. This VIS image shows the southwestern section of the interior depression.

Orbit Number: 74834 Latitude: -47.6066 Longitude: 4.28931 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2018-10-28 02:12

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.