Status Report

NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Large Boulders in a Trough

By SpaceRef Editor
March 8, 2004
Filed under , , ,

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-659, 8 March 2004




NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows the walls and floor of a wide trough in the Sirenum
Fossae region
near 26.4°S, 140.7°W.
Boulders rolled down the trough walls as they eroded
out of the rock outcrops exposed on the upper slopes.
Sunlight illuminates this scene from the upper left; the image
covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi) wide.

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.

SpaceRef staff editor.