NASA's MRO discovers structure on martian surface which could be an impact crater!

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

New Delhi: The US space agency NASA has released an image from the HiRISE instrument on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which could be an impact crater.

According to NASA, the image was acquired to take a closer look at a circular feature that might be an impact structure on the South Polar layered deposits.

And measuring the sizes and frequency of impact craters will provide a constraint on the age of the landscape, as per reports.

But, craters in icy terrain are modified by processes that flatten and change them in such a manner that it is hard to say if it had an impact origin.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.