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PIA21464: Polar Pits: Are They Active?
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a portion of the North Polar layered deposits with lines of very small pits, only about 1 meter in diameter.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) 
 Spacecraft:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
 Instrument:  HiRISE 
 Product Size:  2880 x 1800 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  University of Arizona/HiRISE-LPL 
 Other  
Information: 		 Other products from PSP_009834_2645 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA21464.tif (15.56 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA21464.jpg (1.068 MB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

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This 2008 image shows a portion of the North Polar layered deposits with lines of very small pits, only about 1 meter in diameter.

Such small pits should be quickly filled in by seasonal ice and dust, so their existence suggests active processes such as faults pulling apart the icy layers.

This is a stereo pair with PSP_009873_2645.

The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. [The original image scale is 33.3 centimeters (13.1 inches) per pixel (with 1 x 1 binning); objects on the order of 100 centimeters (39.3 inches) across are resolved.] North is up.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Image Addition Date:
2017-02-27