NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Martian Graffiti
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1396, 9 March 2006
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
| This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a variety of textures observed on a south middle-latitude plain east-southeast of Hellas Planitia. Dark streaks left by passing dust devils are practically ubiquitous across the scene, including the transition from the texturally-smooth area (the majority of the image) onto the circular, rough feature near the right (east) edge of the image. The circular feature might once have been the site of an impact crater; perhaps this is the remains of its floor, and the rest of the crater and the rock in which it formed was removed by erosion. |
| Location near: 60.4°S, 242.5°W |
| Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
| Illumination from: upper left |
| Season: Southern Summer |
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.
