NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Zephyria Channel System

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-845, 10 September 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows a portion of an outflow channel system located
in the Zephyria region, south of Cerberus, from which
vast quantities of rough-surfaced material flowed. The
channel system has no name and was not known prior to the
MGS mission. The material that flowed through this system
may have been extremely fluid lava, or it may have been
water-rich mud. Research by members of the Mars science
community regarding the nature and origin of flow materials
in the Cerberus, Zephyria, and Marte Vallis regions of Mars
is on-going. This image is located
near 4.6°N, 204.1°W.
The image covers an area approximately 3 km (1.9 mi) across
and is illuminated by sunlight 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.