NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Amenthes Crater Cluster

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-765, 22 June 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) picture shows a cluster of impact craters, some of which damaged a portion of an old valley that runs roughly left to right in the lower half of the scene. The crater cluster most likely resulted from secondary impact of debris thrown from a much larger asteroid or comet impact, elsewhere on Mars. Large, light-toned, windblown ripples occur in many of the depressions in this portion of the Amenthes Fossae region. The picture is located near 7.3°N, 259.4°W, and covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) wide. Sunlight illuminates the terrain from the left/upper 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.