NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Layers in Shalbatana Vallis

Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-931, 5 December 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows an exposure of layered material, probably
sediment, on the floor of Shalbatana Vallis. Erosion has
exhumed small impact craters and created round, layered
buttes. This image is located
near 3.2°N, 43.4°W, and covers an area
approximately 3 km (1.9 mi) wide. The scene is illuminated
by sunlight 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.