NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Weepy Crater
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1552, 12 August 2006
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
| This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows gullies—all of which head at the same level—on a south mid-latitude crater wall. At the 6 meters (~20 feet) per pixel scale at which this image was obtained, the gullies almost appear as if they are the product of a “weeping layer,” a porous layer of rock through which a liquid such as water may have percolated until it came to the martian surface at this crater wall, then flowed downslope, toward the crater floor. |
| Location near: 34.0°S, 208.4°W |
| Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
| Illumination from: upper left |
| Season: Southern Autumn |
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.
