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Summer snow on the Red PlanetNew photos from the Mars Global Surveyor reveal snow on Mar's northern hemisphere |
![]() Right: Recently, the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) passed over a relatively small impact crater located at latitude 68°N (on the Vastitas Borealis plain, north of Utopia Planitia) and took this picture. Bright areas are thought to be frost or snow remaining from the frigid Martian winter than ended in July 1998. Illumination is from the upper right. This image of Martian snow was only one of three new images from Mars Global Surveyor released yesterday. |
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Until recently the elliptical orbit of the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft carried it close to the surface of the northern hemisphere, but relatively far from the surface of the southern hemisphere. Photographs of objects in the north have shown great detail for some time, but southern images were fuzzier because they were taken from a greater distance. Now that the orbit has been circularized, through aerobraking, it is possible to see both halves of Mars in great detail. Striking photographs of the southern hemisphere are now pouring in -- an example is the Alexey Tolstoy Crater, pictured below. |
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Mars Global Surveyor Web Site
A steamy cover-up on the red planet -- New evidence for active volcanism on Mars. Feb. 18, 1999 NASA Space Science News Bugs of Fire -- Spacelab crystallizes a protein from a very weird, and surprisingly common, volcano-loving bug. Scientists hope to discover how these bugs can survive in such extreme conditions. Sept. 16, 1998 NASA Space Science News The Sands of Mars -- Oct. 29, 1998 NASA Space Science News New NASA images of the Martian North Pole -- Oct. 23, 1998 NASA Space Science News New images of volcanoes on Mars and Io -- Oct. 14, 1998 NASA Space Science News The Planetary PhotoJournal -- the latest images from around the solar system JPL Press Release on Martian Sand Dunes Mars Global Surveyor Animations More NASA Space Science News |
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