NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Hills and Flows
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1068, 21 April 2005
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a plain covered by flow material that surrounded and banked against three older, rounded hills in the Zephyria region. Although some investigators have proposed that the flows covering plains in this region are the remains of an ice-covered lake, others have found considerable evidence, including small volcanoes, to suggest that the flows are volcanic. The textures on these flows resemble that of some of the lava flows in the volcanic Tharsis region of Mars. |
Location near: 2.7°S, 195.7°W |
Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
Illumination from: upper left |
Season: Southern Winter |
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.
