Swiss Cheese Like Landscape on Mars
Explanation:
Why do parts of the south pole of Mars look like
swiss
cheese?
This little-understood landscape features flat-topped
mesas nearly 4 meters high and circular
indentations over 100 meters across.
Since this swiss-cheese topography is unique to the
polar cap covering southern
Mars,
exogeologists
speculate that mesa composition
might be high in
frozen carbon dioxide
(
dry ice).
Additionally,
dry ice might have had a role in this
strange landscape's creation.
In the
above picture, the Martian surface is illuminated
by sunlight from the upper right.
The
above picture was taken in August 1999 by the
robot Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft currently orbiting
Mars.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
