NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Inverted Channel
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1008, 20 February 2005
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows an inverted channel running down, through a valley in the Memnonia Sulci region of Mars. The original channel is gone, as are the rocks through which it cut. The channel floor and/or the material that filled the channel was more resistant to erosion, and thus left standing high as a ridge. Inverted channels and valleys are common on Mars. Many old valley networks have been filled, buried, and in some cases, exhumed and inverted, all across the planet. |
Location near: 11.4°S, 174.4°W |
Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
Illumination from: upper left |
Season: Southern Winter |
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.
