NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Eastern Cerberus
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-423, 16 July 2003
![]() NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows the dark, wind-streaked plains of eastern Cerberus, located
southeast of the Elysium volcanoes. The dark, diagonal lines
are the Cerberus Fossae, a series of cracks where the surface
of Mars has literally split open. This composite of red and blue
MOC wide angle images was obtained in June 2003.
The center of this view is located
at 12.5°N, 201°W. North is up, east is to the right, and
sunlight illuminates the 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.