NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Cut-off
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1561, 21 August 2006
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
| This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows an unconformity in an exposure of north polar layered material, at which older layers were cut-off and eroded before a new suite of layers was deposited above them. The terrain in the entire scene was covered by a thin frost of frozen carbon dioxide at the time this picture was acquired in June 2006. |
| Location near: 86.1°N, 208.5°W |
| Image width: ~4 km (~2.5 mi) |
| Illumination from: lower left |
| Season: Northern Spring |
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.
