NASA Mars Image of the Day: Layers in Tithonium Chasma

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-445, 7 August 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Tithonium Chasma is one of the troughs of the vast
Valles Marineris canyon system. Within many of these
troughs are outcrops of light-toned, layered, sedimentary
rock. This
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
shows eroded sedimentary rock exposures overlain by the
remnants of a smoother-surfaced, dark material. The dark
feature is a younger sedimentary deposit made of a different
material than the light-toned sediments; it
covered the lighter rocks after they were eroded to their
present form.
This area is located
near 5.0°S, 89.8°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.