NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Sedimentary Rocks and Dunes

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-921, 25 November 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows buttes composed of light-toned, sedimentary
rock exposed by erosion within a crater occurring
immediately west of Schiaparelli Basin
near 4.0°S, 347.9°W. Surrounding these buttes
is a field of dark sand dunes and lighter-toned, very
large windblown ripples. The sedimentary rocks might
indicate that the crater interior was once the site of
a lake.
The image covers an area about 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.