NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Sedimentary Rock Layers

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-618, 27 January 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows layers of sedimentary rock in a crater in western
Arabia Terra. Layered rock records the history of a place, but
an orbiter image alone cannot tell the entire story. These materials
record some past episodes of deposition of fine-grained material
in an impact crater that is much larger than the image shown here.
The picture is located
near 3.4°N, 358.7°W, and covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi.) wide.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the lower 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.