NASA Mars Picture of the Day: West Candor Layers 03-07-2004

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-658, 7 March 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

West Candor Chasma, one of the wide troughs of the great Valles
Marineris canyon system, exhibits some of the most spectacular,
varied, and extensive layered rock outcrops on Mars.
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows some of the layers of sedimentary rock exposed in
west Candor Chasma
near 5.9°S, 75.6°W.
The picture covers an area approximately 3 km
(1.9 mi) wide; sunlight illuminates the scene from the left/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.