NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Tharsis Wind Streaks

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-533, 3 November 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
picture shows dark wind streaks on a plain east of
Olympus Mons in the Tharsis region of Mars. Streaks such
as these change from time to time over the course of a
martian year, suggesting that they are the result of
wind movement of a thin layer of bright dust. In other
words, wind is not moving dark material to make the
dark streaks, it is removing bright material (thin
coatings of dust). This picture is located
near 16.3°N, 127.7°W. The image covers
an area 3 km (1.9 mi) across and is illuminated by
sunlight from the upper 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.