US space agency NASA has released yet another image of the surface of Mars, obtained via the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera installed aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that has been relaying data from the Red Planet since 2006.
According to a caption accompanying the image, which was posted in the photo journal on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s website, the picture was taken “in the middle of winter in Mars' Southern Hemisphere, and shows a crater near 37 degrees south latitude”.
During every winter on Mars, the swathes of the planet’s surface become covered with carbon dioxide frost, or dry ice, and the photo in question offers a glimpse of this phenomenon.
Photo of a crater on Mars taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
© NASA . JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
“The south-facing slope has patchy bright frost, blue in enhanced colour,” says the caption. “This frost occurs in and around the many gullies on the slope, and in other images, has caused flows in the gullies.”