19 March 2004
The martian south polar residual ice cap is mostly made of frozen carbon dioxide. There is no place on Earth that a person can go to see the landforms that would be produced by erosion and sublimation of hundreds or thousands of cubic kilometers of carbon dioxide. Thus, the south polar cap of Mars is as alien as alien can get. This image, acquired in February 2004 by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), shows how the cap appears in summer as carbon dioxide is subliming away, creating a wild pattern of pits, mesas, and buttes. Darker surfaces may be areas where the ice contains impurities, such as dust, or where the surface has been roughened by the removal of ice. This image is located near 86.3°S, 0.8°W. This picture covers an area about 3 km (1.9 mi) across. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the top/upper left.