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Oblique Origins
This image, taken with the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC), shows the bright rays of Hovnatanian crater. The "butterfly" pattern of the rays, combined with the oval shape of the crater, indicates that the object that formed the crater impacted the surface with an incidence angle of less than 15 degrees (from the horizontal). The floor of the crater contains an impact melt pool toward the south and central-peak type mountains toward the north (displaced from the center due to the highly oblique impact).
Date acquired: November 15, 2012
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington