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Rupes Tenuis

Rupes Tenuis


Date: 05 October 2011
Depicts: Rupes Tenuis
Copyright: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

ESA's Mars Express orbiter imaged the snow-laden region of Rupes Tenuis on the Martian North Pole on 29 July 2008. Rupes Tenuis is located at the southern edge of the Martian north polar cap, approximately 5500 km northeast of the Tharsis volcanic region.

The image was acquired at about 81°N / 297°E and has a ground resolution of approximately 41 metres per pixel. It covers an area of about 44 000 km², almost as large as The Netherlands.

This is a particularly interesting site since different kinds of molecules have been in this region. A layer of carbon dioxide ice that is centimetres to decimetres thick covers the deep water-ice polar cap. During the warmer summer months, most of the carbon dioxide ice sublimates and escapes into the atmosphere, leaving behind the water-ice layers. Water is a key element in the study of habitability, and therefore it is important to estimate the content of the water reservoirs in the polar regions. Studying the frozen water and carbon dioxide in the polar caps can also help us understand the current climate of Mars and its various cycles. In addition, measurements of the atmosphere, obtained with instruments on Mars Express, suggest a maximum abundance (about 3–4 times the global value) of methane near the North Pole in mid to late summer, which makes the observation over this area even more interesting.

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO License. Creative Commons License

Last Update: 1 September 2019
28-Mar-2024 09:24 UT

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