NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Rippled Dune

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-875, 10 October 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows ripples on the surface of a dune in a crater
west of Sinus Meridiani
near 2.5°N, 9.3°W.
Most martian dune surfaces do not show ripples at the
scale of MOC images—a higher resolution (better than
15 cm/pixel) view would be needed. These ripples are probably
not typical sand ripples; they may be coarser-grained
granule ripples (usually made up, in part, of grains
1-4 millimeters in size). The light-toned features
in the image are wind-eroded outcrops of sedimentary rock.
The image covers an area about 1.5 km (~0.9 mi) wide.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper 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.