NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Huygens Wind Streak
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1219, 19 September 2005
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NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows the results of wind action on the floor of the giant martian impact basin, Huygens. The large crater in this image has a wind streak on its lee side, pointing toward the lower right (southeast). Usually, a light-toned wind streak behind a crater on Mars will be composed of a thin veneer of dust that the wind was not able to erode because it was protected by the presence of the crater’s raised rims. In this case, the streak is caused by something different — by the fact that dark, windblown sand has not been able to accumulate behind the crater. |
Location near: 13.0°S, 303.7°W |
Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
Illumination from: lower left |
Season: Southern 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.
