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Today's VIS image shows part of the floor of Orson Welles Crater. This region of the crater contains chaos. Chaos is formed where tectonic forces break the surface into blocks. Erosion along the breaks widen and deepen the valleys between creating mesas. There is evidence that this crater may once have held a lake. Orson Welles Crater is 116 km in diameter (72 miles).

Orbit Number: 94963 Latitude: -0.688448 Longitude: 314.526 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2023-05-12 13:20

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.