Channel and Fan in Lyot Crater (ESP_019372_2300)
Channel and Fan in Lyot Crater (ESP_019372_2300)
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Extensive flow of liquid water across the surface of Mars is generally constrained to the first billion years of the planet's evolution. There are some specific places, however, where liquid water may have been stable later in the planet's history, when Mars is considered to have been cold and dry. Lyot Crater is one of those places.
Lyot Crater is a "peak-ring basin" that formed in the lowlands of the Northern hemisphere of Mars, making it the lowest topographic point in the northern hemisphere. Additionally, we know that the Lyot impact event occurred after the most significant era of fluvial activity on Mars, so any features observed in Lyot were formed after that era as well.
This observation shows what appears to be a very unusual fan of material that is sourced by a valley that extends upslope for almost 50 kilometers along the floor of Lyot Crater (top-right of the full image). The fan is not fresh, so this activity pre-dates the martian gullies (a few of which can be seen at the top of this image). The fan has been mantled by smooth material which has been removed in some areas and fractured in others. This makes it difficult to tell what the fan looked like when it was originally emplaced.
Lyot Crater is found in a region of Mars that is thought to host many debris-covered glaciers (some of which are found within Lyot itself) and ice-rich mantling units. These could provide potential sources of water that, under conditions slightly more favorable than those of today, could melt and create features like we see here.
Written by: Jay Dickson (Brown University)
Original release: 3 November 2010
OBSERVATION TOOLBOX
Acquisition date: 13 September 2010 Local Mars time: 3:31 PM
Latitude (centered): 49.7 ° Longitude (East): 30.8 °
Range to target site: 325.0 km (203.1 miles) Original image scale range: 32.5 cm/pixel
(with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~98 cm across are resolved
Map projected scale: 25 cm/pixel and north is up Map projection: EQUIRECTANGULAR
Emission angle: 20.5 ° Phase angle: 37.2 °
Solar incidence angle: 56 °, with the Sun about 34 ° above the horizon Solar longitude: 148.0 °, Northern Summer
For non-map projected products:
North azimuth: 95 ° Sub-solar azimuth: 340.8 °
F O R M A P P R O J E C T E D P R O D U C T S
North azimuth: 270° Sub solar azimuth 160.4°
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For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov. 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. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. The image data were processed using the U.S. Geological Survey’s ISIS3 software.
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