Mars Picture of the Day: South Polar Ice Cap

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-337, 21 April 2003

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image
shows the “swiss cheese” pattern of frozen carbon dioxide on the
south polar residual cap. Observation of these materials over two
Mars years has revealed that the scarps that bound the mesas and
small buttes are retreating—the carbon dioxide ice is subliming
away–at a rate of about 3 meters (3 yards) per Mars year in some
places.
The picture covers an area
about 900 m (about 900 yards)
wide near
87.1°S, 93.7°W.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the
upper 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.