It’s springtime on Mars and with it comes avalanches near the north polar cap!
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRiSE camera team released this spectacular image of an avalanche on Mars. The dust-like particles are hanging a few tens of meters above the surface in a rugged region near the north pole of the Red Planet.
These are likely caused when a avalanche of carbon dioxide frost slide down the steep cliff wall you see here. The cliff itself is about 700 meters (2,000 feet) high and is a melange of layered water ice and dust. It’s very similar to what we see on Earth near our poles (and in fact, reminds me of some snow “dunes” we have near our house that have been piled up since early in the year). The bright stuff on the top surface is ice and frost made of carbon dioxide ice.
The cool thing about this view is that it’s helping the Mars scientists understand the processes that affect the Martian surface throughout the seasons, but especially during the freeze-and-thaw cycle that the planet experiences during late winter into spring. The HiRiSE teams have been spotting avalanches pretty regularly, which gives them a lot to study. They now know that these things come thundering down in the middle of spring — say during the Mars equivalent of April to early May. All together, it seems this is a regular spring process at Mars’s north pole that may be expected every year. Now, all they have to do is figure out the sequence of events that lead to these spectacular events. Stay tuned!
If you ask people what they want to see on Mars and let ’em vote on their favorite places to image, you get some gorgeous places on one of the most fascinating worlds of the solar system. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRiSE camera snapped a collection of images and released the first eight today that were suggested by the public through a program called HiWish. What impresses me is how savvy folks can be about the Red Planet. It’s tough to pick out MY favorite of the first eight, but this one of ice layers at the Martian North Pole is both intriguing AND easy on the eyes! You can see the other seven at the link above.
The Martian north polar layered deposits are an ice sheet much like the Greenland ice sheet on the Earth. Just as with the ice sheet in Greenland, this Martian ice sheet contains many layers that record variations in the Martian climate. Courtesy MRO/HiRiSE/Univ. Arizona/JPL-Caltech
The cool thing about the HiWISH program is that it’s an ongoing project, so if you haven’t suggested a place for the HiRiSE camera to point its viewfinder, skedaddle on over to the HiWish site and make your Martian wishes known!
P.S. Many thanks to the folks who sent good wishes the past week or two. I returned from an astronomy lecture trip with a broken arm (who knew lecturing could be so dangerous?) and until a few days ago, typing was very difficult. I’m still a bit sore, but some physical therapy and exercise will bring it back in shape soon!
