NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows gullies with banked and somewhat sinuous channels and inner channels cut into the wall of a south middle-latitude crater near 46.6°S, 175.7°W. Banked channels are among the key evidence suggesting that some martian gullies involved flowing fluids with all of the physical properties of liquid water. The image covers an area about 2.3 km (1.4 mi) wide, and is illuminated by sunlight from the 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.