Mars Picture of the Day: Gullies in Terraced Crater Wall

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-375, 29 May 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Gullies—possibly formed by a liquid such as water in the
recent martian past—formed at two different levels in the
walls of a meteor impact crater near 36.2°S, 185.5°W.
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
shows gullies in the upper crater wall (top of the image) and
emergent from the slope of a lower terrace (bottom of the image).
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.