Status Report

NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Polar Cap Pits

By SpaceRef Editor
August 17, 2005
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Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1186, 17 August 2005




NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems



This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows kidney bean-shaped pits, and other pits, formed by erosion in a landscape of frozen carbon dioxide. This images shows one of about a dozen different patterns that are common in various locations across the martian south polar residual cap, an area that has been receiving intense scrutiny by the MGS MOC this year, because it is visible on every orbit and in daylight for most of 2005.

Location near: 86.9°S, 6.9°W

Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi)

Illumination from: upper left

Season: Southern Spring


Tips for Media Use

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.

SpaceRef staff editor.