NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Tithonium Dust Devil

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-766, 23 June 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) captured this chance view of a dust devil (left of the center of the picture) near 2 p.m. local Mars time on 12 April 2004, in western Tithonium Chasma. The dark splotch to the right of the dust devil is its shadow. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left/upper left. Tithonium is one of the troughs of the Valles Marineris system. The picture is located near 4.7°S, 89.1°W, and covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) wide.

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.