HiRISE: Secondary craters

ESP_046876_1465This image of a southern mid-latitude crater was intended to investigate the lineated material on the crater floor. At the higher resolution of HiRISE, the image reveals a landscape peppered by small impact craters.

These craters range from about 30 meters in diameter down to the resolution limit (about 2 meter diameter in this image acquired by averaging 2×2 picture elements). Such dense clusters of small craters are frequently formed by secondary craters, caused by the impact of material that was excavated and ejected from the surface of Mars during the creation of a larger nearby crater by the impact of a comet or an asteroid. [More at link]

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