NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Layers in Crater Cluster

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-431, 24 July 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
shows a cluster of old, small impact craters near
36.3°N, 281.9°W. The group of craters were probably
formed by secondary impacts following a much larger impact
that occurred some distance away; the material that created these
craters would have been the ejecta from the larger crater, rather
than meteoroids from outer space. The craters cluster is considered
to be relatively old because none of the craters have ejecta
blankets any more, and each was filled, or partially filled, with
layered material that was later eroded to form the terraced mounds
found in their floors. This picture is illuminated from the lower
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.