Mars Picture of the Day: Becquerel Layers

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-350, 4 May 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
shows layered sedimentary rock outcrops in Becquerel Crater of
western Arabia Terra. These materials were deposited in the crater
some time in the distant past, and later eroded to their present
form. They probably consist of fine-grained sediments; they could
have been deposited directly from dust and/or volcanic ash
settling out of the martian
atmosphere, or silt and sand settling to the floor of an ancient lake.
The image does not provide enough information to distinguish between
the two possibilities.
The picture is located near
21.5°N, 8.1°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.