Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera

Boulder Ring

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-345, 29 April 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a ring of boulders on the floor of a southern mid-latitude basin. The sharp, inner ring of boulders and knobs is the location of the rim of a filled and buried impact crater. The outer, diffuse ring of boulders is the material ejected from the impact crater when it formed. The crater and its ejecta are only thinly buried beneath the surface. This feature is located near 55.5°S, 333.3°W. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the 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.

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