Mars Crater’s Cracked Frosting

This image looks like the frosted top of an over-baked muffin, but it’s actually the side of a crater on Mars covered with ice. Taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) over the Martian south pole, this example demonstrates an active process of weathering acting on the red landscape. According to the HiRISE site, the ice layer is approximately 3 km thick.

In regions situated closer to the equator, craters aren’t open to erosion by ice (not surface ice in any case), but in polar regions it’s a different story. Due to the Martian thin and cold atmosphere, water ice rarely melts into a liquid; it bypasses the liquid phase and turns straight into a gas. This process is known as sublimation. There are terrestrial examples of sublimation too, including frozen carbon dioxide (or “dry ice”) which sublimes at room temperature, generating a carbon dioxide vapour.

For this particular crater, it is obvious where there is a higher rate of sublimation than others. As the Sun illuminates the crater edge from the bottom right, the rim of the crater receives the most sunlight, heating up the darker regolith and causing more ice loss. The large cracked-like structure within the crater is most likely a combination of darker material under the ice receiving preferential heating and shrinkage of the subliming ice pack.

This seasonal freezing of water vapour and sublimation of water ice erodes the sides of these polar craters, wearing them down season after season.

I never tire of seeing HiRISE images of the Red Planet, especially when they include active atmospheric processes that continue to shape the landscape of this alien world.

Source: HiRISE