NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Triple Impact
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1162, 24 July 2005
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a 1.5 meters per pixel (~5 ft/pixel) view of three aligned meteor impact craters on the floor of a much larger crater in the Noachis Terra region. The craters may have formed together from a single event in which the impactor (the meteor) was broken into three pieces. |
Location near: 33.9°S, 10.5°W |
Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
Illumination from: upper left |
Season: Southern Spring |
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.
