NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Tyrrhena Tongue
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1410, 23 March 2006
NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a tongue of debris at the base of the wall of a large crater in Terra Tyrrhena. The tongue is the combined product of landsliding and emplacement of crater ejecta—a ~3 km (1.9 mi) wide impact crater formed on the rim of the larger crater and, when it did, it caused the movement which created the tongue. About one third of the crater that caused this can be seen near the southwest (lower left) corner of the image. |
Location near: 21.1°S, 270.0°W |
Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
Illumination from: upper left |
Season: Southern Summer |
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.