Mars Picture of the Day: Old Arabian Crater

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-376, 30 May 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
shows an old meteor impact crater that was once buried and
was then partially-exhumed
from within the layered rocks on the floor of a much larger crater
in eastern Arabia Terra. The erosion processes that began to exhume
the crater, however, stopped some time ago, because today the entire
area is covered by a blanket of dust. Avalanches of this dust
have created dark streaks on the walls of the partly exhumed crater.
This April 2003 image covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi) wide and
is located
near 20.9°N, 320.8°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.