Mars Picture of the Day: Distributary Channels
Mars Global Surveyor – Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-360, 14 May 2003
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
At the center of this February 2003
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image is a pattern of branching channels in an apron of debris that
distributed the sediment and fluid carried by the large gully below
(to the south) of them. The slope decreases from the bottom toward the
top of the image—that is, everything is downhill from the bottom to the top.
Middle- and polar-latitude gullies were first discovered in MOC images
and reported in June 2000. The distributing channels found in this
gully apron are a good indicator that the fluid responsible for the
gully and distributary channels had properties like that of liquid
water. However, of course, the exact nature of the fluid is unknown,
because it is no longer present.
This picture is located near
47.8°S, 355.6°W.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the
lower 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.
