© 2000 PRESS RELEASE

Date Released: Monday, October 16, 2000

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

30,000 New Mars Images Are Now Available on the Web

The imaging team of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft has doubled the number of Mars pictures available to the public with the release of a new archive of red planet pictures totally slightly more than 30,000 images.

The archive contains all the pictures that were taken by Mars Global Surveyor from September 1999 through February 2000 and includes the images that were taken to search for the Mars Polar Lander spacecraft. No evidence of the lander was ever seen. The archive also covers the period of south polar cap retreat through southern spring and into early summer. This includes changes observed on the south polar cap's "Swiss cheese" surfaces, among others.

A sample of images is available at http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/oct_2000_sampler/, http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs .

Mars Global Surveyor was launched on November 7, 1996 and entered orbit around Mars on September 12, 1997. The spacecraft has been systematically mapping the red planet since March 1999.

Mars Global Surveyor is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The camera system was built and is operated by Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., which developed and operates the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), November 25, 2000