NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Broken, Tilted Rocks
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1432, 14 April 2006
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
| This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows light-toned, layered rock outcrops in the central pit of an impact crater in the Thaumasia Planum region of Mars. The outcrops were tilted and broken-up by the extreme energy of the impact that formed the crater in which they occur. These are layers of rock that were brought up by the impact from horizontal beds that lie below the floor of the crater. |
| Location near: 21.7°S, 69.4°W |
| Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
| Illumination from: upper left |
| Season: Southern Summer |
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.
