Martian South Pole

The wings of an angelic figure, complete with halo, can be seen sweeping up and off the top of the frame in a new image from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, while a large heart sits just right of center.

This image comprises data gathered by ESA’s Mars Express on November 8, 2020, during orbit 21,305. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

This image comprises data gathered by ESA’s Mars Express on November 8, 2020, during orbit 21,305. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

The new image was acquired by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard Mars Express on November 8, 2020.

It shows dune fields and several periglacial formations in the southern polar region of Mars, with the pole itself located directly out of frame to the right.

The region is typically covered in a 1.5 km-thick ice cap measuring around 400 km across and with a volume of 1.6 million km3, just over 12% of which is water ice.

The rest of the cap is largely composed of solid carbon dioxide, which freezes from the atmosphere during winter and then sublimates in the summer.

As Mars’ southern hemisphere is currently experiencing summer, the new mage shows the planet’s southern polar ice stores at their lowest annual levels.

The ‘angel’ and ‘heart’ are both composed of various interesting features.

Firstly, the angel’s hand, seen as if reaching to the left, is thought to be a large sublimation pit, a type of feature that forms as ice turns to gas and leaves empty pockets and depressions in the planetary surface.

Sublimation pits have been seen on other planets in the Solar System, such as Pluto, and can also be seen scattered across the terrain to the right.

Moving on to one of the angel’s most distinctive features, its halo, reveals yet more intriguing processes at play.

The ‘head’ and halo are formed of a 15-km-wide impact crater, created as a body from space flew inwards to collide with Mars’ crust.

As this impactor hit it dug down into the surface, revealing the numerous layered deposits that make up the southern polar region.

These subsurface layers can be glimpsed in other areas where the surface has been disturbed — areas that are clearly identifiable in the associated topographic view due to their notably low elevation — and hint at the long, complex, interesting history of this part of Mars.

The heart is underscored by a steep escarpment — a line of cliffs or steep slopes created by erosive processes — and separated from the dark expanse of dunes below.

The origin of this dark material, which is found all over Mars, remains unclear, but scientists posit that it once existed deeper below the surface in layers of material formed by ancient volcanic activity.

Although this material was initially buried, it has since been brought to the surface by ongoing impacts and erosion, and then distributed more widely across the planet by the Martian winds.

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This article is based on text provided by the European Space Agency.

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