MOC "Looking Into" Martian Craters

During the first week of May 1999, the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) spent sometime peering into martian impact craters.

This crater is located on a plain west of the Tartarus Montes (east of Elysium Mons volcano). The crater is about 2.7 kilometers (1.7 miles) across. Illumination is from the left.

If you have ever visited the famous Meteor Crater in northern Arizona, U.S.A., then you are aware of its immense size on a human scale. The Arizona crater, however, is only 1 kilometer across (0.62 miles), whereas this crater is nearly three times that size.

This crater was formed by the impact and explosion of a meteorite at some time in the martian past. After the crater formed, it was modified by wind and erosion. The crater shows deposits of sand and dust on the floor and in low areas around the rim, also boulders and other debris that has slid down the inside walls of the crater; and some crater walls show exposures of bedrock.

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.