Impact melt tongue

A bouldery tongue of impact melt spills over from a pool inside the ruined rim of a small crater inside Jackson, carrying along with it a debris field of house and car size boulders. LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observation M133892450L, LRO orbit 4685, July 16, 2010; incidence angle 75°, scale 83 centimeters per pixel. View the larger LROC Featured Image HERE [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Sarah Braden
LROC News System

Another beautiful impact melt feature found in Jackson crater! This thin flow of impact melt spreads across the surface of a terrace. The boulders around the edges of the flow may have eroded out of the flow, or were carried there by the impact melt. In the upper right hand corner of the image, there are many large boulders, as well as smooth areas which are impact melt. The impact melt flow seems to originate from that area. Since the large boulders are on top of the impact melt, the impact melt probably landed in the spot first, and the large boulders are a later addition, falling down from a point higher up on Jackson's wall.

Jackson crater, located at 22.4°N, 163.1°W. 71 km in diameter. The red box shows the location of the featured NAC frame; view the full-size LROC WAC context image HERE [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Look in the full NAC frame for more exciting impact melt flows!

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