NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Becquerel’s Layers
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1342, 14 January 2006
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows light-toned, layered, sedimentary rock outcrops in Becquerel Crater in the western Arabia Terra region. The crater may once have hosted a lake, into which these sediments were deposited. Although the fine, detailed layering in Becquerel was not known until the MGS MOC first began to image these materials in 1999, the presence of a grossly-layered, light-toned feature was known from Viking orbiter images and was speculated from those data to possibly represent evidence for the presence of a former lake. |
Location near: 21.5°N, 8.2°W |
Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
Illumination from: lower left |
Season: Northern 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.
