Icy Cliffs and Impact Craters
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
Icy Cliffs and Impact Craters
ESP_070939_2305  Science Theme: Glacial/Periglacial Processes
We’ve come to understand in recent years that about a third of Mars has ice just below the surface. Many impact craters in the mid-latitudes are filled with smooth material that is probably ice covered with a little dirt. Part of one of these filled craters appears in this HiRISE image and has an interesting feature about 250 meters (800 feet) across, near the image center.

What looks like might have been a small impact crater now has a straight edge with a steep cliff on its southern side. This north-facing cliff appears to expose icy material that’s similar to other pole-facing scarps showing buried ice elsewhere on the planet. These cliffs give us a cut-away view of the buried ice in that location and can help answer questions about what the Martian climate was like when this ice formed.

Written by: Shane Byrne (narration: Tre Gibbs)  (15 December 2021)
 
Acquisition date
13 September 2021

Local Mars time
15:23

Latitude (centered)
50.180°

Longitude (East)
241.010°

Spacecraft altitude
299.7 km (186.3 miles)

Original image scale range
60.4 cm/pixel (with 2 x 2 binning) so objects ~181 cm across are resolved

Map projected scale
50 cm/pixel and North is up

Map projection
Equirectangular

Emission angle
7.3°

Phase angle
53.7°

Solar incidence angle
47°, with the Sun about 43° above the horizon

Solar longitude
98.8°, Northern Summer

For non-map projected images
North azimuth:  97°
Sub-solar azimuth:  353.0°
JPEG
Black and white
map projected  non-map

IRB color
map projected  non-map

Merged IRB
map projected

Merged RGB
map projected

RGB color
non-map projected

JP2
Black and white
map-projected   (251MB)

IRB color
map-projected   (143MB)

JP2 EXTRAS
Black and white
map-projected  (117MB)
non-map           (141MB)

IRB color
map projected  (48MB)
non-map           (116MB)

Merged IRB
map projected  (262MB)

Merged RGB
map-projected  (242MB)

RGB color
non map           (107MB)
BONUS
4K (TIFF)
8K (TIFF)
10K (TIFF)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
B&W label
Color label
Merged IRB label
Merged RGB label
EDR products
HiView

NB
IRB: infrared-red-blue
RGB: red-green-blue
About color products (PDF)

Black & white is 5 km across; enhanced color about 1 km
For scale, use JPEG/JP2 black & white map-projected images

USAGE POLICY
All of the images produced by HiRISE and accessible on this site are within the public domain: there are no restrictions on their usage by anyone in the public, including news or science organizations. We do ask for a credit line where possible:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

POSTSCRIPT
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.