NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Ladon Sedimentary Rocks
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1114, 6 June 2005
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows light-toned, layered, sedimentary rocks exposed by the fluids that carved the Ladon Valles system in the Erythraeum region of Mars. These rocks are so ancient that their sediments were deposited, cemented to form rock, and then eroded by the water (or other liquid) that carved Ladon Valles, so far back in Martian history that such liquids could still flow on the planet’s surface. |
Location near: 20.8°S, 30.0°W |
Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
Illumination from: upper 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.
