Mars Picture of the Day: Meridiani Cliffs and Buttes

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-347, 1 May 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
of layered sedimentary rock outcrops in northern Sinus Meridiani
shows several buttes and ridges formed in rock that is somewhat resistant
to erosion. The circular feature near the bottom of the picture is
an old impact crater that was filled, then buried within the layered
material, then later partially exhumed. The sinuous ridge and small buttes to
the right of the exhumed crater are composed of the same rock materials
that once buried the crater.
The picture covers an area
about 3 km (1.9 mi)
wide near
2.3°N, 353.6°W.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the
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.