Mars Picture of the Day: North Polar Dust Storm

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-334, 18 April 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This composite of Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
wide angle daily global images shows a north polar dust storm on
March 7, 2003. Similar late summer storms occurred nearly every
day from late February well into April 2003; these were also seen
in late summer in 1999 and 2001. The white features at the top of
the image are the water ice surfaces of the north polar residual cap.
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.