Fresh crater on the southwest rim of Metius B crater.
LROC NAC image width is 740 meters
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Onthe left, the morphology of this small mare crater (200 m diameter) isclear, whereas in the image on the right differences in brightness(reflectance or albedo) are highlighted defining ejecta patterns. Explorers might prefer the low-Sun image for landing or planning traverses, while the high-Sun image guides the eye to ejecta. Oneof the strengths of the LRO mission is that it passes over the sameregion numerous times, and each time the Sun angle is differentallowing LROC to build up an image set over a wide range of angles.
This crater also illustrates the influence of pre-existing regolith (soil) structure on crater morphology. When the regolith is relatively thin, over more-or-less intact bedrock, small craters often do not have a simple bowl shape. Thiscrater is filled with rubble and there are numerous blocks up to 10 min diameter scattered around the rim and the interior, indicating thatbedrock was excavated during the impact. Incases where impacts occur in a thick regolith, the crater does notexcavate blocky rocks but rather fine-grained soil, resulting a nicelydefined bowl shape. |