NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Yard Sale
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1526, 17 July 2006
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
| This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a bright plain west of Schiaparelli Crater, Mars, which is host to several features, some of them long-lived and others that are transient. The circular features scattered somewhat randomly throughout the scene are impact craters, all of which are in a variety of states of degradation. In the lower left (southwest) corner of the image, there is a small hill surrounded by ripples of windblown sediment, and near the center of the image, there is an active dust devil casting a shadow to the east as it makes its way across the plain. |
| Location near: 5.9°S, 348.2°W |
| Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
| Illumination from: upper left |
| Season: Southern Autumn |
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.
