Mars Picture of the Day: Boulder Ring

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-345, 29 April 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
shows a ring of boulders on the floor of a southern mid-latitude
basin. The sharp, inner ring of boulders and knobs is the
location of the rim of a filled and buried impact crater. The outer,
diffuse ring of boulders is the material ejected from the impact
crater when it formed. The crater and its ejecta are only thinly
buried beneath the surface.
This feature is located near
55.5°S, 333.3°W.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the
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.