Herschel (Martian crater)

Herschel
Martian impact crater Herschel based on THEMIS image
Planet Mars
Coordinates 14°54′S 130°00′E / 14.9°S 130°E / -14.9; 130Coordinates: 14°54′S 130°00′E / 14.9°S 130°E / -14.9; 130
Diameter 304.5 km
Eponym William Herschel & John Herschel

Herschel is a 304 kilometer Impact Basin[1] in the Martian southern hemisphere, at 14.5°S, 130°E, located in the Mare Tyrrhenum region[2] of Mars and is inside Terra Cimmeria. The crater is jointly named after the seventeenth/eighteenth century father and son astronomers William Herschel and John Herschel.[3]

Dark dunes in Hershel crater.

Nearby named craters include the much smaller Luqa to the southeast, also further south is the slightly smaller Müller, to the north is the slightly smaller Knobel and Robert Sharp craters and northeast are the Lasswitz-Wien crater pair.

Moving Sand Dunes

Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft originally photographed fields of dark sand dunes within Herschel.[4][5] Images from the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed that sand dunes on the floor of the Herschel crater are not stationary (as previously believed), but moved over time. Images from photos taken by the Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on March 3, 2007 and December 1, 2010 show clear shifting of dunes and ripples.[6] Research published in Icarus stated that the dunes in Hershel Crater moved 0.8 m in a time span of 3.7 Earth-years. Also, it was determined that dune ripple moved 1.1 m in that time period.[7]

References

  1. ↑ Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. "Herschel Impact Basin, Mars".
  2. ↑ M. Cardinale, G. Komatsu, International Research School of Planetary Sciences. "Analysis of Diverse Dune Fields in Herschel Crater (Mars)from HiRISE Datasets" (PDF).
  3. ↑ "John Frederick William Herschel (March 7, 1792 - May 11, 1871)".
  4. ↑ NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. "Dark Dunes in Herschel Crater".
  5. ↑ NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. "Dark Sand Dunes and Sand Sheet in Herschel Crater".
  6. ↑ NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Ariz./JHUAPL. "Rippling Dune Front in Herschel Crater on Mars".
  7. ↑ Cardinale, M., S. Silvestro, D. Vazd, T. Michaels, M. Bourke, G. Komatsu, L. Marinangeli. 2016. Present-day aeolian activity in Herschel Crater, Mars. Icarus: 265, 139-148.

See also


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