Latest from Mars: Massive Polar Ice Cliffs, Northern Dunes, Gullied Craters

By Nancy Atkinson - July 12, 2012 at 6:07 PM UTC | Planetary Science
polar-ice-cliffs.jpg

Several gorgeous images are in this week's

update

from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This lovely image shows the cliffs at the edges of huge ice sheet at the North Pole of Mars. These cliffs are about 800 meters (2,600 feet) high, and the ice sheet is several kilometers thick at its center. This is a great spot to look for ice avalanches that HiRISE has captured previously. The HiRISE team said that the slopes of these cliffs are almost vertical, plus dense networks of cracks cover the icy cliff faces making it easier for material to break free. The team regularly monitors sites like this to check for new blocks that have fallen. You can look for yourself to see if any avalanches have occurred since

the last image was taken of this area

, almost exactly one Martian year ago.

The HiRISE scientists monitor these regions to help in understand the climatic record stored in the ice sheet itself.

What else did HiRISE see this week?

These cool-looking dunes look reminiscent of Pac-Man, and they might even be moving across the surface of Mars! They are approximately 100 meters across and are traversing a bumpy, hard terrain, pushed across the surface by the winds on Mars. The HiRISE team will take more images of this dune field in subsequent passes to determine whether these dunes are really moving.

This image shows a gullied crater in the Southern mid-latitudes with light-toned deposits near the center of its floor, and two areas of collapsed terrain at the northern and southern edges of the crater floor.

For more information on each of these images, click on them to see the original page on the HiRISE website, or go to the

HiRISE website

to see all the wonderful images from Mars.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com