NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Windswept
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1489, 10 June 2006
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
| This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a light-toned wind streak created in the lee—the downwind side—of an impact crater in the Cyane Fossae region of Mars. Winds blowing from the bottom (south) toward the top (north) swept this scene clean of fine, bright dust except for the dust that had accumulated in a few protected areas such as that in the lee of this crater. |
| Location near: 42.0°N, 125.8°W |
| Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
| Illumination from: lower left |
| Season: Northern Spring |
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.
