NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Hole in Ground
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1557, 17 August 2006
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
| This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a modest-sized meteor impact crater in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars. The dark spot inside the crater is, most likely, a patch of windblown sand and silt. This crater is nearly twice the size of the famous Meteor Crater in northern Arizona in North America. |
| Location near: 31.8°N, 243.4°W |
| Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
| Illumination from: lower left |
| Season: Northern Spring |
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.
