Water-ice at Martian South Pole
Date: 05 October 2011
Depicts: HRSC partial view of Martian South Pole, where OMEGA found water- ice
Copyright: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
A partial view of the Martian south polar ice cap where the OMEGA instrument on Mars Express found water-ice. The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on Mars Express acquired this image on 11 February 2004 during orbit 103, from an altitude of 269 kilometres. The steep slopes, known as 'scarps', are made almost entirely of water ice, falling away from the polar cap to the surrounding plains as well as from the permafrost fields that stretch for tens of kilometres away from the scarps.
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.
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