NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Noachis Pit Crater Gullies

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-939, 13 December 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows fine details among mid-latitude gullies formed on
the walls of a large pit within a filled meteor impact
crater in the Noachis Terra region of Mars. Like the gullies

originally described in June 2000,
these may have formed by the seepage of groundwater. Other
scientists have speculated that, elsewhere on Mars, similar
gullies might form by melting of ice or snow, by liquid or
gaseous carbon dioxide, or dry mass movement (landsliding)
processes. The many fine tributaries in the Noachis pit crater
area shown here lend support to the hypothesis that a liquid
with the physical properties of water was involved.
This image is located
near 47.8°S, 354.9°W, and covers an area
approximately 3 km (1.9 mi) wide. The scene is illuminated
by sunlight from the 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.