NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Layers in Crater Wall 01-22-2004

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-613, 22 January 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This January 2004
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows three distinct bands of layered material
exposed in the wall of a south, middle-latitude meteor
impact crater wall. Talus–debris shed from erosion of
the wall–has piled up on the slopes below the layered
outcrop.
This picture is located
near 45.5°S, 85.9°W, and covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi) wide.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the right/lower right.

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.