NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Buttes in Memnonia

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows three small buttes in the Memnonia Sulci region of Mars
near 10.5°S, 176.1°W. The buttes are remnants of
formerly more extensive layered rock that once covered the region.
The larger butte has several dark slope streaks formed by
downslope movement (landsliding/avalanching) of dust.
The picture covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) across.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the 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.