NASA Mars Picture of the Day: West Arabia Sedimentary Rocks

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-896, 31 October 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows sedimentary rock outcrops within a crater
in western Arabia Terra
near 8.8°N, 1.3°W. These are eroded from the
same rocks as seen in an earlier MOC Picture of the Day from
1 December 2003.
The repeated nature of these layers indicate episodic changes
took place in the sedimentary depositional environment. The
sediments may have been deposited in an intracrater lake.
The picture covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) wide.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left/upper left.

Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology
built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission.
MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, California.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Surveyor Operations Project
operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial
partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena,
California and Denver, Colorado.