Impact craters can provide a useful look into the subsurface and show us some of the buried layers from Mars’ past. Here in Oxia Planum, a crater that’s 1 to 2 kilometers (about 1 mile) across shows a prominent layer as a bright ring near the crater’s rim.

When the crater formed, a lot of debris slumped into the interior and covered up the floor. However, the higher areas near the rim can show some of the pre-impact layering.

Oxia Planum is the target of the European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover. It’s an area with rocks that are thought to record the activity of ancient water on the surface of Mars.

ID: ESP_084979_1975
date: 11 September 2024
altitude: 282 km

https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_084979_1975
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
#Mars #science #NASA