NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Layers in Gale Crater

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-480, 11 September 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter
Camera (MOC) picture shows some of the layered,
sedimentary rock outcrops exposed on a mound in
Gale Crater near 5.0°S, 221.8°W.
These layers represent a long history of sedimentation
that occurred in Gale Crater at some time in the
distant martian past. Later, these layers were
eroded and exposed. Gale Crater may once have been
completely filled by these layered materials.
The picture
covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi) across and
is illuminated by sunlight from the 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.