NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Exhuming Craters in a Crater

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-938, 12 December 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Burial and exhumation of impact craters, and their destruction
by erosion, are common and repeated themes all over the surface
of Mars. Many craters in western Arabia Terra exhibit light-toned,
layered outcrops of ancient sedimentary rock. Like the sedimentary
rocks explored further to the south in Meridiani Planum by
the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover (MER-B), these intracrater
sedimentary rocks may have been deposited in water.
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows an example of light-toned sedimentary rocks outcropping
in a crater that is much farther north than most of the similar
examples in western Arabia. This one is located
near 36.6°N, 1.4°W, and shows several old impact
craters in various states of erosion and exhumation from beneath
and within the sedimentary rock materials. The image covers an area
approximately 3 km (1.9 mi) wide and is illuminated
by sunlight 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.