NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Gullies in Crater Wall

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-688, 6 April 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows gullies in the wall of a large impact crater
in Newton Basin
near 41.9°S, 158.1°W.
Such gullies may have formed by downslope movement of wet
debris–i.e.,water. Unfortunately, because the responsible
fluid (if there was one) is no longer present today, only the
geomorphology of the channels and debris aprons can be used to
deduce that water might have been involved.
The image covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) across.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper 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.