NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Sedimentary Rock Near Coprates

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-420, 13 July 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This mosaic of two
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
narrow angle camera images, one from 2001, the other
from 2003, shows light-toned, layered, sedimentary rock
outcrops exposed on the floor of a trough that parallels
Coprates Chasma in the Valles Marineris system.
Layered rocks form the pages from which the history
of a place can be read. It may be many years before
the story is read, but for now at least we know where
one of the books of martian history is found.
This picture is located near
15.2°S, 60.1°W.
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.