NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor is in its ninth year of studying the red planet and still churning out science.

In this view, the MGS orbiter examines a 1.9-mile by 1.9-mile (three-kilometer by three-kilometer) area covering the floor of an unnamed impact crater in the western Martian region known as Arabia Terra.

The light-toned, layered mounds denote older terrain, while dark-hued sand dunes and intermediate-colored ripples suggest newer formations forged by winds blowing from the northeast to the southwest.

The MGS orbiter launched towards Mars in 1996 on a mission originally slated to end in 2000. After a finicky solar panel hinge slowed aerobraking procedures by one year, the mission lengthened to 2001 only to be extended over and over again.

The spacecraft’s Mars Orbiter Camera recorded this view of Arabia Terra during the northern winter season on the red planet.

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• NASA Compiles 25,000-Picture Atlas of Mars

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems.