Colorful impact crater
The surface around the impact crater likely consists of different materials. South of the crater (left side of the image), the surface displays a warm red color, changing towards a darker brown/grayish tone closer to the crater. In this region, many small buttes can be found. Then, the surface appears fairly smoothened, this becomes well visible at the crater rims and further to the north (right side of the image). Here the coloration of the surface changes towards a lighter tone, and the rims of the channels appear less defined. Finally, at the right side of the image, the surface looks much smoother. These many colors hint a surprising variability of the surface mineralogy in this region.
Inside the impact crater, a beautiful dark dune field can be spotted measuring just 5.4 x 2.7 km, resting on a light-toned, bright deposit. At closer inspection, many little buttes and knobs can also be found inside the crater, showing that the crater is filled with different materials that accumulated inside. Measurements from the THEMIS instrument on board of NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft document a very high thermal inertia in these deposits confirming the wide difference in composition.