NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Schiaparelli’s Sedimentary Rocks

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-874, 9 October 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Schiaparelli Basin is a large, 470 kilometer (~292 miles)
impact crater located east of Sinus Meridiani. The basin
might once have been the site of a large lake–that is,
if the sedimentary rocks exposed on its northwestern
floor were deposited in water.
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows a 1.5 meter per pixel (5 ft per pixel) view
of some of the light-toned, finely-bedded sedimentary
rocks in northwestern Schiaparelli. The image is located
near 1.0°S, 346.0°W, and covers an area
about 3 km (1.9 mi) wide.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the 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.