NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Crumbled Mesa
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-463, 25 August 2003
![]() NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
picture shows a mesa in the Avernus Colles region of
Mars, near 3.9°S, 190.8°W. The mesa and the very
large blocks that have been shed from its slopes are all
that remain of a once much more extensive suite of layered
rock that used to cover the entire area shown here. This
full-resolution (1.5 meters–5 feet–per pixel) image
covers an area 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.