MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
Contact: Mary Hardin
INTERNET IMAGE ADVISORY November 8, 1999
NEW MARS IMAGES SHOW CLOSE-UP VIEW OF GIANT IMPACT CRATER
NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft has taken a close-up
look at a Martian impact crater that is three times the size of
Earth’s well-known Meteor Crater in Arizona.
The new image, along with others taken during Mars Global
Surveyor’s ongoing mapping mission, are available at
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov or http://www.msss.com .
The detailed look at this impressive Martian feature shows
many small windblown drifts, or dunes, in the low areas both
within the crater and outside on the surrounding terrain. Some
portions of the crater’s walls exhibit outcrops of bare, layered
rock. Large boulders, some bigger than school buses, have been
dislodged from the walls and have tumbled down the slopes to the
crater floor.
Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a long-term
program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program
that is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA’s
Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is a division of
the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
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