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Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera

All Hail Hale

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1553, 13 August 2006

Medium-sized view of MGS MOC Picture of the Day, updated daily
NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows dried streambeds—martian gullies— in the mountainous central peak region of Hale Crater. Some scientists have suggested that the fluid which carved these gullies was liquid water, and that it either resulted from ancient snowmelt or from release of groundwater that percolated to the surface in the intensely fractured rock of Hale's central peak. In either case, the gullies are dry today, and dark sand can be seen as dunes near the right/lower right part of the image.
Location near: 35.8°S, 36.8°W
Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi)
Illumination from: upper left
Season: Southern Summer


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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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