NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Memnonia Landscape
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1507, 28 June 2006
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
| This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a contact between a dust-covered plain and a dust-mantled, textured upland in the Memnonia Sulci region of Mars. The dominant landforms in this scene are yardangs—they are the product of extensive wind erosion of a relatively poorly-consolidated, sand-bearing material (e.g., deposits of volcanic ash or poorly cemented sedimentary rocks). |
| Location near: 9.3°S, 172.9°W |
| Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
| Illumination from: upper left |
| Season: Southern Autumn |
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.
