NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Light-toned Layers in Kasei

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-760, 17 June 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This April 2004 Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a fantastic outcrop of alternating light and dark layers in the wall of a crater that impacted into the floor of one of the eastern Kasei Valles flood channels. The history recorded in these layers, while unknown, might include the history of ancient floods in the Kasei Valles system. This crater wall is located near 31.1°N, 54.1°W. The 500 meter scale bar is about 547 yards long. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper 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.