NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Defrosting North

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-758, 15 June 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Spring is upon the martian northern hemisphere, and the
north polar cap is shrinking.
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image, acquired on 12 June 2004, shows the retreating edge
of the seasonal north polar cap
near 70°N, 209°W. Low clouds and fogs stream
away from the cap edge as it sublimes away. North is
approximately up and the image
covers an area roughly 500 km (311 mi) across.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the lower left.
The crater containing a thick mound of material near
the right-center of the image is Korolev.

Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology
built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission.
MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, California.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Surveyor Operations Project
operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial
partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena,
California and Denver, Colorado.