NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Intracrater Dune Field

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-458, 20 August 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
shows a field of dark sand dunes trapped on the floor of
a crater near Cerberus at 8.6°N, 190.9°W. The
local winds within the crater have shaped these dunes
such that they all reflect a general trend of sand transport
toward the west and southwest (left/lower left).
This image covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi) across.
Sunlight illuminates the scene 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.