HiRISE: Coming and going of ice

ESP_042440_1380Like Earth’s water table, Mars has an ice table. Sometimes, the ice table coincides with the ground’s surface as it does here. The knobby, pitted terrain is caused when ice is deposited and then sublimates over and over again. This geologic process is called “accrescence” and “decrescence” and also occurs on Neptune’s moon Triton and on Pluto, though in the outer Solar System the ice is not water ice. [More at link]

This entry was posted in Reports and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.