NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Becquerel’s Bands

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-987, 30 January 2005

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows alternating light- and dark-toned bands–layers
of sedimentary rock exposed by erosion in Becquerel Crater.
Becquerel is located in western Arabia Terra
near 4.1°N, 111.5°W, and might have once been
the site of a lake. A few straight, narrow fault lines
can be seen in the image; they cut the rock in trends
that run from upper right
toward lower left (northeast-southwest). This picture
covers an area about 1.5 km (0.9 mi) wide and is
illuminated by sunlight from the 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.