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PIA24694: Splat!
This image acquired on April 10, 2021 by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows rays of ejecta thrown out by the impact of a meteor.
 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_068934_1750 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA24694.tif (14.97 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA24694.jpg (795.6 kB)  

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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Mars and the Earth run into debris in space regularly, and on our planet, meteors usually vaporize in the atmosphere.

On Mars however, with a surface pressure 1/100th that of the Earth, the impactors generally make it to the surface. This particular impact took place on Mars sometime in the last 5 years. Although the crater is small, the rays of ejecta thrown out by the impact are easy to spot, stretching out almost a kilometer.

The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. (The original image scale is 25.6 centimeters [10.1 inches] per pixel [with 1 x 1 binning]; objects on the order of 77 centimeters [30.3 inches] across are resolved.) North is up.

The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. 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/University of Arizona

Image Addition Date:
2021-06-25