Cydonia


At the beginning of its 239th orbit of Mars, the Global Surveyor's
Mars Orbiter Camera obtained another image of the Cydonia. At 7:02 AM
PDT on 14 April, the MGS spacecraft attempted to image an area,
sometimes referred to as the "City," centered at 40.86° N, 9.91° W
(USGS MDIM Coordinates), see figure, below. Note that this figure
shows a different position than that shown on the MGS Project web page
devoted to explaining swath size. The MGS Project page does not
represent what was actually targeted. The image below, a screen dump
from the targeting software, is what the MOC was commanded to observe.



Owing to spacecraft pointing control limitations, the actual area
imaged was centered at 40.84° N, 9.98° W (see software screen dump,
below). This offset, approximately 3.13 km (1.9 mi) in longitude, is
greater than one-half of the field-of-view (FOV = 2.6 km or 1.6 mi),
and there is very little if any overlap between the targeted features
and those observed. The high resolution image has scale of 2.5 m (8.2
feet) per pixel, and was acquired at nearly a vertical viewing angle
(2.35°).





                                   New MOC Data


                                    JPEG = 530 KB

The figure above shows the low resolution, wide angle context frame
acquired during orbit 239. The white box outlines the location of the
high resolution narrow angle image. Note that the atmosphere is
considerably clearer than for the previous Cydonia image (of the
"Face"), taken last week.



                   WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IMAGES ARE VERY BIG

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Digital versions of the raw image can be retrieved from the MGS
Project web site. These images are also very big.

The processed, full-resolution narrow angle image, available above,
shows numerous features that illustrate why scientific interest in the
Cydonia area, as well as other regions of fretted terrain (Nilosyrtis,
Deuteronilus, Protonilus), is so high. Seen in this image are a number
of mass movements (landslides), moated hills and peaks and intensely
pitted surfaces (created by differential erosion of various layers),
and features that may reflect periglacial processes (those involving
the movement of ice- and/or water-saturated soil and debris).