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Today's VIS image shows some of the extensive wind etched terrain in Memnonia Sulci, located east of Apollinaris Mons. Memnonia Sulci is part of the Medusae Fossae Formation, a region of soft, easily eroded deposits that extends for nearly 5000km (3106 miles) along the equator of Mars between Olympus Mons and Apollinaris Mons. In this region, like many others throughout the Medusae Fossae Formation, the surface has been eroded by the wind into a series of linear ridges called yardangs. The ridges generally point in direction of the prevailing winds that carved them, so the predominate winds that created the yardangs in this image blew NW/SE. The easily eroded nature of the Medusae Fossae Formation suggests that it is composed of weakly cemented particles, and was most likely formed by the deposition of wind-blown dust or volcanic ash.

Orbit Number: 94406 Latitude: -5.66737 Longitude: 184.045 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2023-03-27 16:37

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.