NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Sedimentary Rock Outcrops

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-820, 16 August 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows eroded layered rock outcrops in
a crater north of Meridiani Planum
near 2.7°N, 359.1°W. The
dozens and dozens of sedimentary rock
layers of repeated thickness and similar physical properties
at this location suggest that they may have been deposited in
a lacustrine (lake) setting. The crater in which these
layers occur may once have been completely filled and
buried, as is the case for many craters in the Sinus Meridiani
region. This
image covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) across;
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.