PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA23238: HiRISE Spots CO2 Ice Sublimating
This series of images shows carbon dioxide ice sublimating (going directly from a solid to a gas) inside a pit at Mars' south pole. Each frame of the animation was taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) 
 Spacecraft:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
 Instrument:  HiRISE 
 Product Size:  1666 x 1350 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  University of Arizona/HiRISE-LPL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA23238.tif (1.978 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA23238.jpg (251.1 kB)  

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:

Click here for animation

This series of images shows carbon dioxide ice sublimating (going directly from a solid to a gas) inside a pit at Mars' south pole. As ice is lost from the steep walls of pits like this, it reforms on nearby flat surfaces. Each frame of the animation was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The images used in this animation were taken between 2007 and 2013. The walls of the pit are about 656 feet (200 meters) across.

The University of Arizona in Tucson operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. 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/University of Arizona

Image Addition Date:
2019-05-15