NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Pits Near Rhabon Valles

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-768, 25 June 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows a series of pits running down the center
of a broad, shallow trough called a graben.
On Mars, many such
troughs, and attendant pits, are the result of geologic
forces that extended the crust as the Tharsis region
of Mars bulged outward to form what is known as, well, the
Tharsis Bulge. This graben and pit chain are located
near the Rhabon Valles
around 23.8°N, 92.3°W. The image
covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) wide;
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.