NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Bedforms in Maja Valles

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-873, 8 October 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows large, light-toned, ripple-like windblown
bedforms in a portion of the giant flood channel
complex, Maja Valles. Ripples such as these are very common
on Mars but not very well understood. They are
larger than most ripples on Earth, and smaller than typical
dunes. They are usually old, and probably immobile, features.
Sometimes, larger, dark sand dunes are seen riding over them
(although that is not the case here).
If similarly-sized ripples were to be investigated by
a Mars rover, they would probably provide critical information
that would help determine the nature of bedforms like
these all over Mars.
The Maja Valles scene shown here is located
near 17.7°N, 54.8°W, and covers an area
about 1.4 km (0.9 mi) wide.
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.