PIA04114: Carbon Dioxide Landscape
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor shows ome of the widely-varied terrain of the martian south polar residual cap. The landforms here are composed mainly of frozen carbon dioxide.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) 
 Spacecraft:  Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter
 Instrument:  Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) 
 Product Size:  1024 x 1152 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Malin Space Science Systems 
 Producer ID:  MOC2-1161  
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA04114.tif (1.181 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA04114.jpg (271.9 kB)  

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Original Caption Released with Image:

23 July 2005
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a view of some of the widely-varied terrain of the martian south polar residual cap. The landforms here are composed mainly of frozen carbon dioxide. Each year since MGS arrived in 1997, the scarps that bound each butte and mesa, or line the edges of each pit, in the south polar region, have changed a little bit as carbon dioxide is sublimed away. The scarps retreat at a rate of about 3 meters (~3 yards) per martian year. Most of the change occurs during each southern summer.

Location near: 86.7°S, 9.8°W
Image width: width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi)
Illumination from: upper left
Season: Southern Spring

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Image Addition Date:
2005-07-23