NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Filled and Exhumed Crater

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-871, 6 October 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This picture is a mosaic of three
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
images (E14-01679, M21-00388, M10-02183) and a lower
resolution Mars Odyssey
THEMIS VIS image (V09499005),
showing details in an exhumed meteor impact crater
in eastern Sinus Meridiani. Layered sedimentary rocks
are seen within the crater and on the terrain outside
the crater. This crater was once completely filled and
buried within the martian bedrock. It was most likely
encased in rock that is older than the strata being
explored by the Mars Exploration Rover (MER-B), Opportunity,
several hundred kilometers west of this area. Erosion has
brought the old crater back to the surface of Mars. This
landform is located
near 0.7°N, 352.7°W. The 1 km scale bar
is about 0.62 miles long.
Sunlight illuminates the images 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.