Perspective view of a crater with butterfly-shaped ejecta
Perspective view of a crater with butterfly-shaped ejecta
Realistic perspective views of the surface of Mars can be generated from data acquired by the stereo and colour channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, which are oriented at an oblique angle with respect to the planet's surface. This image shows a view into a crater with butterfly-shaped ejecta located in the Melas Dorsa region. To form an ejecta blanket of this shape, the impact must have occurred at a very shallow angle to the planet’s surface; it is thought that subsurface ice was present, and that this liquefied or vaporised on impact.
Copyright note:
As a joint undertaking by DLR, ESA and FU Berlin, the Mars Express HRSC images are published under a Creative Commons licence since December 2014: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. This licence will also apply to all HRSC images released to date.