NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Arabia’s Auqakuh Vallis

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-477, 8 September 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows a portion of southern Auqakuh Vallis in northeastern
Arabia Terra. The floor of this ancient valley—which might
have been carved by a liquid such as water—is today covered by
large, windblown, ripple-like bedforms. The terrain surrounding
the valley has been eroded such that only remnants of former
craters and layered bedrock remain. The valley was once much
deeper, but material of hundreds, if not thousands, of meters
thickness has been removed.
This picture is located near 28.9°N, 299.9°W; it
covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi) across and
is illuminated by sunlight 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.