NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Textured Memnonia Plain

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-435, 28 July 2003M

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

One of the goals of the
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) Picture of
the Day collection is to provide a sense of the great diversity
of terrain, surfaces, patterns, and textures of the martian
surface, as viewed by the MOC high resolution (narrow angle) camera.
This image shows an intercrater plain in the Memnonia region that
has been severely eroded by wind to form sharp ridges known
as yardangs. This terrain would be very difficult to
walk, or drive a rover, across.
The picture is located near 11.8°S, 157.2°W.
The scene is illuminated by sunlight 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.