Mars: topographical map of the western north polar region
Mars: topographical map of the western north polar region
With a diameter of around 1100 kilometres, the northern polar cap of Mars rises over 4000 metres from the planet's northern lowlands. Radar measurements have shown that the average thickness of the permanent ice sheet is around two kilometres and has a volume just over half that of the Greenland ice sheet. The presumably relatively young ice cap consists mainly of water ice, with considerable amounts of carbon dioxide ice in winter. During the 350-day-long polar night, about a quarter of the carbon dioxide atmosphere freezes out over the North Pole, trickles down as dry ice onto the northern martian hemisphere and extends the ice cover from the pole to the 60th parallel. The scenes shown here from Olympia Planum, the 'Olympic Plain', were recorded on 14 April 2023 by DLR's HRSC camera on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft during its 24,354th orbit around Mars.
Credit:
NASA/JPL/USGS; FU Berlin