Skip Navigation: Avoid going through Home page links and jump straight to content

banner.gif

 

Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera



Gullies and Streaks on Crater wall Kaiser

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-308, 18 April 2002

E12-00113sub_i1.gif
Full size (710 KBytes)



This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows gullies emergent from a specific layer in the wall of an ancient crater within a much larger crater, Kaiser. Located at 46.4°S, 341.4°W, this picture obtained in early southern summer also shows a plethora of dark, and in some places squiggly, streaks. The streaks are thought to have been formed by the passage of dust devils that removed or disrupted a thin coating of dust from the surface. Such streaks commonly form at martian middle latitudes in late spring and early summer. The gullies in the crater wall were likely eroded by a fluid, perhaps water. This picture was obtained in January 2002; it covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi) across and is illuminated from the upper left.



Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems


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, CA. 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, CA and Denver, CO.

babylogo.gifTo MSSS Home Page