Dusty Volcanic Vent in Syria Planum

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, Posted on: Monday, 12 March 2007, 08:13 CDT Download full size image

Previous images of this area by other space missions indicate that this is a shield volcano with very shallow slopes. What HiRISE reveals is that it is completely covered by a blanket of dust.

While volcanic featues remain obscure, the dust does exhibit some very strange patterns. As you zoom into the middle of the image, the ground appears covered with a fine network of light and dark polygons. But at full resolution, it can be seen that these polygons are actually the edges of small scallops.

The dust is apparently held together by some unknown means, giving it sufficient strength to be carved into this strange pattern.

Observation Geometry

Image PSP_001840_1660 was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on 17-Dec-2006. The complete image is centered at -13.9 degrees latitude, 255.8 degrees East longitude. The range to the target site was 252.8 km (158.0 miles). At this distance the image scale is 25.3 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~76 cm across are resolved. The image shown here has been map-projected to 25 cm/pixel and north is up.

The image was taken at a local Mars time of 03:40 PM and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of 60 degrees, thus the sun was about 30 degrees above the horizon. At a solar longitude of 152.0 degrees, the season on Mars is Northern Summer.

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