Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera
Indications of Subsurface Ice: Polygons on the Northern Plains
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-150, 19 July 1999
860 KByte gif --
215 KByte gif
Someone's kitchen floor? A stone patio?
This picture actually does show a floor--the floor of an old
impact crater on the northern plains of Mars. Each "tile" is somewhat
larger than a football field.
Polygonal patterns are familiar to Mars geologists because
they are also common in arctic and antarctic environments on Earth.
Typically, such polygons result from the stresses induced in
frozen ground by the freeze-thaw cycles of subsurface ice.
This picture was taken by MOC in May 1999 and is illuminated from
the lower left.
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, CA. 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, CA and Denver, CO.
To MSSS Home Page