NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Becquerel’s Sediment

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-978, 21 January 2005

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows light-toned, layered, sedimentary rock outcrops
in south-central Becquerel Crater in western Arabia Terra
near 21.3°N, 8.4°W.
The layered material may have been deposited in an
intracrater lake, early in martian history. The material
has subsequently been exposed and eroded by wind. Dark sand
dunes have accumulated along the southern margin (bottom
of image) of the outcrop exposure.
The image covers an area about
3 km (1.9 mi) wide and is illuminated by sunlight from the
left/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.