Mars Picture of the Day: Small Martian Mesa

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-381, 4 June 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
was acquired during the first week of June 2003. It shows
a small mesa surrounded by a plain of dust-mantled dunes
and ripples near 5.9°S, 202.8°W. Large, house-sized
boulders have tumbled down the mesa slopes. This is one of
the highest resolution images from Mars, each pixel covers
an area of 1.5 meters (5 feet) across.
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.