Mars Picture of the Day: Polygons on Crater Floor
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-357, 11 May 2003
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) picture
shows a pattern of polygons on the floor of a northern plains impact
crater. These landforms are common on crater floors at high
latitudes on Mars. Similar polygons occur in the arctic and
antarctic regions of Earth, where they indicate the presence
and freeze-thaw cycling of ground ice. Whether the polygons on
Mars also indicate water ice in the ground is uncertain.
The image is located in a crater at
64.8°N, 292.7°W.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the
lower 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.
