NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Cracked Plain, Buried Craters

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-839, 4 September 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows a cracked plain in western Utopia Planitia. The
three circular crack patterns indicate the location of
three buried meteor impact craters.
These landforms are located
near 41.9°N, 275.9°W.
The image covers an area approximately 3 km (1.9 mi) across.
Sunlight illuminates this 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.