NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Fortune Cookie Sand Dunes

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-432, 25 July 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
shows a field of small barchan sand dunes in the north polar
region near 71.7°N, 51.3°W. Some of them are shaped like
fortune cookies. The message these dunes provide: winds blow
through this region from the lower right toward the upper left.
The steep slip face slopes of these dunes, which point toward
the upper left, indicate the wind direction.
The scene is illuminated by sunlight from the upper right.
The image is 3 km (1.9 mi) wide.

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.