NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Layers and Exhuming Crater

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-956, 30 December 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows a portion of an old impact crater that was
filled, buried, and is now being exhumed from within
sedimentary rock strata located in western Arabia Terra,
the region immediately north of Meridiani Planum. The
Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, has explored
sedimentary rocks in the Meridiani region; the rocks
of nearby western Arabia can only be explored (for the time
being) from orbit. Wind has sculpted some of the
layered rock into streamlined forms known as yardangs.
The crater shown here, at one time, may have been the
site of a small lake. The crater is located
near 8.4°N, 5.7°W.
The picture covers an area about 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.