Mars Picture of the Day: Polar Polygon Patterns

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-338, 22 April 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
was taken during southern spring, as the seasonal carbon dioxide
frost cap was subliming away. Frost remaining in shallow cracks and
depressions reveals a fantastic polygonal pattern. Similar polygons
occur in the Earth’s arctic and antarctic regions—on Earth
such polygons are related to the freeze and thaw of ground ice.
The picture covers an area
about 3 km (about 1.9 mi)
wide near
71.9°S, 11.1°W.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the
left.

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.