The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board the ESAs Mars Express spacecraft has obtained detailed images of the Tyrrhena Terra region on the Red Planet.
Paris, Aug 2 : The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has obtained detailed images of the Tyrrhena Terra region on the Red Planet.
The pictures were taken on May 10, 2007 with a ground resolution of approximately 15 metres per pixel.
Tyrrhena Terra is part of the ancient, heavily cratered southern Martian highlands. The region, located at 18 digree South and 99 digree East, is north of Hellas Planitia, the largest impact basin on Mars, and the pictures were taken during orbit number 4294.
The HRSC obtained images of three impact craters located at the eastern border of Tyrrhena Terra with Hesperia Planum.
A 35 kilometre-wide and approximately 1000 metre-deep impact crater with an extremely steep rim dominates the western part of the scene. The rim rises up to 400 metres above the surrounding plains. Multiple layers of material ejected during the impact surround the crater. These so called 'ejecta blankets' spread up to a distance of 50 kilometres around the crater.
Scientists say their round, lobate appearance hints at possible ice- and water-rich subsurface material.
According to the researchers, the raised feature in the centre of the crater, which is comparable to what happens when a drop of water hits a puddle, and is called the 'central peak' or 'central uplift', most likely originated from the elastic rebound of compressed subsurface material after the impact.
Another, 18 kilometre-long and approximately 750 metre-deep impact crater, in all likelihood a 'double impact crater', is located south of the large crater. These 'double impact craters' develop when two objects, possibly part of the same fragmented object, hit the surface almost simultaneously.
The ESA said in a statement that the impact that formed the larger northern crater, which displays an intact crater wall, occurred after the double-impact crater was formed.
The ejecta from this later impact reshaped the double-impact crater, the ESA said, adding that the ejecta that filled the northern part of the crater is present even at the bottom of the crater, in the direction of the point of impact.
The ESA further said it derived the colour scenes from the three HRSC colour channels and the nadir channel, and calculated the perspective views from the Digital Terrain Model derived from the HRSC stereo channels.
The anaglyph images were calculated by putting together data from the nadir channel and one stereo channel. The black and white high-resolution images were derived from the nadir channel, which provides the highest level of detail, the ESA statement said.
ANI