NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Exhumed Arabian Crater

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-830, 26 August 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Eastern Arabia Terra shares many attributes with western
Arabia and Sinus Meridiani. In particular, it is a region
of vast layered rock within which are interbedded filled
and buried craters and valleys. Erosion has subsequently
re-exposed many of these landforms, including the exhumed
and eroded crater shown in
this Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image. Following the period in which erosion occurred,
the region was blanketed by dust.
This image is located
near 22.5°N, 318.4°W, and
covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) across.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left/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.