Hot Dog and Butterfly, Nereidum Montes Target Name:   Mars Spacecraft:   Mars Global Surveyor Produced by:   Malin Space Science Systems/NASA Copyright:  NASA Copyright Free Policy Date Released:  19 March 1999

• The Face on Mars and Other Familiar Features
• Mars

Some of the pictures returned from Mars by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) onboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft show features that--at a glance--resemble familiar, non-geological objects on Earth. For example, the picture above at the left shows several low, relatively flat-topped hills (mesas) on the floor of a broad valley among the mountains of the Nereidum Montes region, northeast of Argyre Planitia. One of the mesas seen here looks like half of a butterfly (upper subframe on right). Another hill looks something like a snail or a hot dog wrapped and baked in a croissant roll (lower subframe on right). These mesas were formed by natural processes and are most likely the eroded remnants of a formerly more extensive layer of bedrock. In the frame on the left, illumination is from the upper left and the scene covers an area 2.7 km (1.7 miles) wide by 6.8 km (4.2 miles) high. The "butterfly" is about 800 meters (875 yards) in length and the "hot dog" is about 1 km (0.62 miles) long.