Rampart Crater

Scaled Image

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

About this image

This image of a rampart crater was acquired Dec. 6, 2002, during northern summer. The dark blue spot in the crater interior is caused by sand cover and sand dunes.
The THEMIS VIS camera is capable of capturing color images of the martian surface using its five different color filters. In this mode of operation, the spatial resolution and coverage of the image must be reduced to accommodate the additional data volume produced from the use of multiple filters. To make a color image, three of the five filter images (each in grayscale) are selected. Each is contrast enhanced and then converted to a red, green, or blue intensity image. These three images are then combined to produce a full color, single image. Because the THEMIS color filters don't span the full range of colors seen by the human eye, a color THEMIS image does not represent true color. Also, because each single-filter image is contrast enhanced before inclusion in the three-color image, the apparent color variation of the scene is exaggerated. Nevertheless, the color variation that does appear is representative of some change in color, however subtle, in the actual scene. Note that the long edges of THEMIS color images typically contain color artifacts that do not represent surface variation.

Please see the THEMIS Data Citation Note for details on crediting THEMIS images. 

Context

Image ID: 
V04333003 (View data in Mars Image Explorer)
28.4367
319.154
4333
2002-12-06 00:18
Thu, 2004-05-20
VIS
512 pixels (19 km)
1440 pixels (53 km)
0.03685 km/pixel
0.037322 km/pixel

Downloads

PNG | JPEG (high res) | JPEG (reduced res) | PDF | TIFF