NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Wave Clouds off Korolev

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-865, 30 September 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This red wide angle
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows a wavy cloud pattern formed in the lee
of Korolev Crater, located
near 72.8°N, 195.7°W.
Korolev Crater is about 85 km (53 mi) in diameter
and named for Sergei P. Korolev, a pioneering Russian
rocket designer and engineer who died in the mid-1960s.
The image, acquired in late northern summer,
is illuminated by sunlight from the lower 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.