NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Large, Windblown Ripples

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-447, 9 August 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
shows the plethora of large, windblown ripples (or small
dunes) among wind-sculpted sedimentary rocks in eastern
Candor Chasma. Candor Chasma is one of the troughs of
the Valles Marineris, a system of chasms that would stretch
all the way across North America if it were on Earth.
This picture is located near 7.9°S, 64.9°W.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the
left/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.