Tag Archives: south polar region

THEMIS: Angustus Labyrinthus, the ‘Inca City’

THEMIS Image of the Day, May 1, 2019. Angustus Labyrinthus is a unique region near the south polar cap. The squares formed by intersecting ridges earned the feature the informal name of the Inca City when it was discovered in … Continue reading

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THEMIS: South polar outliers

THEMIS Image of the Day, April 26, 2019. This VIS image is located near the south polar cap and exhibits the same layering of ice and dust. Outliers are regions that were once part of a larger regional feature but … Continue reading

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THEMIS: Layers in Cavi Angusti

THEMIS Image of the Day, April 25, 2019. Cavi Angusti is located near the south polar cap and consists of large irregular steep-sided depressions termed cavi. Layering is visible within the large cavi at the top of the image. Explore … Continue reading

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Lake under south polar ice cap requires local heat source

Thermal modeling suggests that active magmatism in the past few hundred thousand years could account for the presence of a large lake previously hypothesized beneath the Red Planet’s southern ice cap. Liquid water appears to be a fundamental requirement for … Continue reading

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THEMIS: High-latitude dune field

THEMIS Image of the Day, February 14, 2019. Today’s VIS image shows a dune field on a crater floor in Terra Cimmeria. Dunes at high latitudes – near the polar caps – are affected by seasonal frost and ice. The … Continue reading

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Volcanism under the south pole ice cap of Mars?

A study published last year in the journal Science suggested liquid water is present beneath the south polar ice cap of Mars. Now, a new study in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters argues there needs to be an underground … Continue reading

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HiRISE: Curving pits and ridges

This terrain is unusual for the South Polar region of Mars, with a set of curved ridges of unknown origin. Small pits are present, often concentrated on the ridges, that may have resulted from sublimation of ice. [More at link]

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HiRISE: Intricate CO2 frost patterns

This polar terrain is cut by an intricate pattern of channels. Carbon dioxide frost in the channels make them bright at this time of year. [More at link]

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HiRISE: Thousands of spiders on Mars

As part of the Planet Four citizen science effort, volunteers searched Context Camera images for possible new locations on Mars with “spiders,” or features with radial troughs from which fans emanate in the springtime. We planned this HiRISE image over … Continue reading

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Mars Express: From worry to water

In 2004, a year after Europe’s first mission to Mars was launched, the flight dynamics team at ESA’s operations centre encountered a serious problem. New computer models showed a worrying fate for the Mars Express spacecraft if mission controllers continued … Continue reading

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