Orcus Patera is a region on the surface of the planet

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

first photographed by

Mariner 4 Mariner 4 (together with Mariner 3 known as Mariner-Mars 1964) was the fourth in a series of spacecraft intended for planetary exploration in a flyby mode. It was designed to conduct closeup scientific observations of Mars and to transmit the ...

. Of unknown formation, whether by volcanic, tectonic, or cratering causes, the region includes a depression about long, wide, surrounded by a rim up to high.

Description

Orcus Patera was first imaged by

. It is a depression about long, wide, and about deep but with a relatively smooth floor. It has a rim up to high. It has experienced aeolian processes, and has some small craters and graben structures. However, it is not known how the patera originally formed. Theories include volcanic, tectonic, or cratering events. A study in 2000 that incorporated new results from

Mars Global Surveyor ''Mars Global Surveyor'' (MGS) was an American robotic space probe developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. MGS was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through t ...

along with older

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

data, did not come out clearly in favor of either volcanic or cratering processes.Orcus Patera : Impact Crater or Volcanic Caldera? (2000)
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Mars Express ''Mars Express'' is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA). The ''Mars Express'' mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. "Express" originally ref ...

observed this region in 2005, yielding a

digital terrain model A digital elevation model (DEM) or digital surface model (DSM) is a 3D computer graphics representation of elevation data to represent terrain or overlaying objects, commonly of a planet, moon, or asteroid. A "global DEM" refers to a discrete g ...

and color pictures.

Images

Viking

Mars Express

Location

Orcus Patera is west of Olympus Mons and east of

Elysium Mons Elysium Mons is a volcano on Mars located in the volcanic province Elysium, at , in the Martian eastern hemisphere. It stands about above its base, and about above the Martian ''datum'', making it the third tallest Martian mountain in terms o ...

. It is about halfway between those two volcanoes, and east and north of

Gale crater Gale is a crater, and probable dry lake, at in the northwestern part of the Aeolis quadrangle on Mars. It is in diameter and estimated to be about 3.5–3.8 billion years old. The crater was named after Walter Frederick Gale, an amateur ast ...

External links

ESA - Mars’s mysterious elongated crater (27 August 2010)Google Mars - Orcus PateraCrater in Orcus Patera (MRO HiRISE)
*http://www.uahirise.org/results.php?keyword=Orcus+Patera&order=release_date&submit=Search
Orcus Patera : Impact Crater or Volcanic Caldera? (2000)

References

{{Portal bar, Solar System Surface features of Mars Depressions (geology)