Zunil (crater)

Zunil (crater)

Zunil is an impact crater near the Cerberus Fossae on Mars, with a diameter of 10.4 km (6.5 mi). It is named after a town in Guatemala. The crater is located in the Elysium quadrangle. Visible in images from the Viking 1 and Viking 2 Mars orbiters in the 1970s, Zunil was subsequently imaged at higher resolution for the first time by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) in 2000.

A ray system associated with the Zunil impact, visible in infrared images from the Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Spectrometer (THEMIS) was later detailed by McEwen et al. (2003); prior to this, large craters with ray systems had not been seen on Mars.

The debris from a recent landslide was first spotted on the south-east wall of the crater by the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) in 2003, and was subsequently imaged at higher resolution by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) in December 2006.