- Original Caption Released with Image:
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The largest number of gullies on Mars occur on the walls of southern
hemisphere craters. During southern winter, many of the gullied walls are
in shadow. It has been known for many years from images taken by the Mars
Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor that frost forms on these
shadowed slopes and that differences in the amount or nature of the frost
deposits highlight the gully floors and deposits. Such differences may
occur because the materials are of different particle sizes or have other
differing attributes that affect their thermophysical properties. To
investigate these phenomena, the Context Camera on NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this image of a crater at 39.3 degrees
south, 136.5 degrees west, where gullies were known to display frost
during winter. To see the gullies, download the image and view it in an
image processing program, as they are nearly invisible in the normal
contrast image. The team using Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High
Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera elected to "ride along" with
the Context Camera observation, and that camera's spectacular color view
of the frosted gullies can be seen at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/.
- Image Credit:
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NASA/JPL/MSSS
Image Addition Date:
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2006-10-16
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