NASA Mars Picture of the Day: South Polar Polygons 03-04-2004

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-655, 4 March 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows a spectacular suite of large and small polygons
in the south polar region. On Earth, polygons such as these
would be indicators of the presence of ground ice. Whether
this is true for Mars remains to be determined, but it is
interesting to note that these polygons do occur in a region
identified by the Mars Odyssey Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS)
team as a place with possible ground ice. The polygons are
in an old impact crater located
near 62.9°S, 281.4°W. This 1.5 meter (5 ft.) per
pixel view covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi) wide and is
illuminated by sunlight from the upper left. To see the smaller
set of polygons, the reader must view the full-resolution
image (click on picture, above).

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.