NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Hill In Deuteronilus

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-954, 28 December 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows an eroded, rounded hill in the Deuteronilus Colles
region of Mars,
near 40.3°N, 338.8°W.
The plains surrounding the hill
have been pitted and modified by erosion. Similar pitting is
common throughout the middle latitude regions of Mars. Some
Mars science investigators have proposed that the pitted
materials were ice-rich, and that sublimation of ice has
created these textures. However, no similar landforms are
found on Earth, thus there is no clear analog that
would help scientists better understand the origin of these
features. The picture covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi)
wide and is illuminated by sunlight 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.