NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Zephyria Outflow Features

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-866, 1 October 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows streamlined islands and a small cataract in
an outflow channel system in the Zephyria region of Mars,
south of Cerberus. The fluids responsible for creating
these landforms flowed from the lower left (southwest)
toward upper right (northeast). The fluids may have been
water and mud or, some Mars scientists have argued,
extremely fluid lava. The presence of a small cataract
probably argues more strongly for a water and mud
origin. This image is located
near 3.8°N, 204.7°W.
The picture covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) wide and
is illuminated by sunlight from upper 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.