Overview
- ESA released new stereo images and a flyover video on December 3 highlighting the Idaeus Fossae feature.
- The crater sits in Mars’s northern lowlands and spans roughly 20 km east–west by 15 km north–south.
- Ejecta is concentrated into two wing-like lobes to the north and south, matching the signature of a shallow trajectory impact.
- Smooth, rounded deposits suggest debris flowed after mixing with melted subsurface ice, a style known as fluidised ejecta.
- Surrounding mesas, dark volcanic layers and wrinkle ridges point to a volcanic and tectonic past, with a comparable butterfly-shaped crater documented at Hesperia Planum.