A Bull’s-Eye

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

On a planet filled with craters of every shape and size, an unusual impact crater came to the atten­tion of sci­en­tists study­ing Mars using NASA’s HiRISE cam­era aboard the Mars Recon­nais­sance Orbiter.

Explore the bull’s-eye crater. On Earth, fea­tures such as this can be caused when an impact punches through lay­ers of hard and soft mate­r­ial, such as ice and rock. Ter­raced craters, such as this one, can be found on Earth, Moon and other moons. Explore the flows a the edge of the crater.

The cen­tral pit is the biggest mys­tery for sci­en­tists. The outer ter­races seem to be softer and more weath­ered, while the cen­tral pit has steep sides. No mate­r­ial can be seen streak­ing away from the cen­tral crater. It could have occurred in the ini­tial impact. Or the pit could have been gouged out by a later impact, strik­ing just off center.

Launched with MRO in 2005, HiRISE is one of six instru­ments aboard the space­craft orbit­ing Mars. HiRISEs cam­era can see objects on the sur­face as small as a beach ball. The instru­ment also offers sci­en­tists stereo views of the sur­face. When com­bined with dig­i­tal ter­rain mod­els, sci­en­tists can “drape” the imagery to pro­duce real­is­tic land­scapes to study and explore.