File:PIA21215 - Cracks in a Crater's Ice.jpg

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English: Many impact craters on Mars were filled with ice in past climates. Sometimes this ice flows or slumps down the crater walls into the center and acquires concentric wrinkles as a result. This image shows an example of this.

There are other ways that scientists know the material in the crater is icy. Surface cracks that form polygonal shapes cover the material in the crater. They are easy to see in this spring-time image because seasonal frost hides inside the cracks, outlining them in bright white. These cracks form because ice within the ground expands and contracts a lot as it warms and cools.

Scientists can see similar cracks in icy areas of the Earth and other icy locations on Mars. If you look closely, you'll see small polygons inside larger ones. The small polygons are younger and the cracks shallower while the large ones are outlined with cracks that penetrate more deeply.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Date 24 August 2016 (published 7 December 2016)
Source Catalog page · Full-res (JPEG · TIFF)
Author NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Location on Mars64° 32′ 34.8″ S, 82° 10′ 51.6″ E View this and other nearby images on: Google Mapsinfo
This image or video was catalogued by Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: PIA21215.

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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission
Credit and attribution belongs to the mission team, if not already specified in the "author" row

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Public domain This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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current14:04, 25 February 2017Thumbnail for version as of 14:04, 25 February 20172,880 × 1,800 (1.11 MB)PhilipTerryGraham (talk | contribs)User created page with UploadWizard