NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Large Windblown Ripples

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-519, 20 October 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This April 2003 Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter
Camera (MOC) high resolution image shows a depression
in the martian southern cratered highlands near
1.3°S, 244.3°W. The floor of the depression and
some nearby craters are covered by large windblown ripples or
small sand dunes. This image of ancient martian
terrain covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi) across and
is illuminated by sunlight from the upper 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.