Spots Among Spots on Mars

By Nancy Atkinson - February 02, 2011 06:02 AM UTC | Planetary Science

This unusual landscape on Mars can be found within a crater on the southern hemisphere of the Red Planet. But if you look on the actual location of this HiRISE image on the Google Map of Mars, below, you'll see these spots are just spots among spots.

Seasonal spots appear on dunes found on the floors of craters on Mars; most likely it is from carbon dioxide frost that is "defrosting" and later may sublimate away. At one time, these spots that seemingly come and go with the seasons were thought to be signs of life on Mars. The jury is still out on that line of thinking.

See the original picture on the HiRISE website and zoom around the Google Mars (below the image on the HiRISE site) to see the entire area, or go to Google Mars.

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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