Mars Picture of the Day: Terby Crater Layers
Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-395, 18 June 2003
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
A sequence of layered, sedimentary rock, more than
1 km (0.62 miles) thick, once filled or nearly filled
Terby Crater, a basin just north of Hellas Planitia.
The sedimentary rocks were eroded and exposed so that
today, the
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
regularly takes pictures of these outcrops in an
effort to better understand them. Exposures of
sedimentary rock on Mars are extremely important
because they show that the planet has a rich,
diverse history. However, an opportunity to read
the history recorded in these rocks may still
be many years away.
This image is near
27.6°S, 285.9°W. The picture
is illuminated 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.
