NASA Mars Picture of the Day: North Polar Features

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-924, 28 November 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows banded terrain of the north polar region of Mars.
The bands are exposures of layered material, possibly composed
of dust and ice. The dark, rounded to elliptical mounds in this
image might be the locations of ancient sand dunes that were
completely buried in the north polar layered material. In
more recent times, these mounds have been exhumed from within
the layered material. Alternatively, the dark features are not
ancient, exhumed dunes, but perhaps the remnants of a dark
layer of material that once covered the entire area shown in
the image. These features are located
near 79.9°N, 31.4°W.
The image covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) wide. Sunlight
illuminates the scene from the lower 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.