NASA Mars Picture of the Day: East Candor Layers 04-03-2004

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-685, 3 April 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows dust-mantled layer exposures (left) in east
Candor Chasma, one of the troughs of the Valles Marineris system.
Erosion of the steeper slope (right) has disrupted the expression of
layered material, indicating that some layered materials on Mars
may not be recognized as such, depending upon how the materials
have been degraded. This image is located
near 7.8°S, 65.6°W.
The image 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.