The NASA HiRISE camera photographed unusual polygonal structures on Mars, which are mainly water and dry ice surface at high latitudes. Why polygons? Water ice frozen in the soil splits the ground into this shape, while erosion of the channels forming the boundaries of the polygons by dry ice sublimating in the spring, which adds various twists and turns to them.
NASA’s High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera details spring activity as the layer of translucent dry ice coating the surface develops vents to allow gas to escape. This gas then carries along fine particles of material from the surface further eroding the channels. HiRISE also captured images of Valles Marineris, or the Grand Canyon of Mars.
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The particles drop to the surface in dark fan-shaped deposits. Sometimes the dark particles sink into the dry ice, leaving bright marks where the fans were originally deposited. Often the vent closes, then opens again, so we see two or more fans originating from the same spot but oriented in different directions as the wind changes,” said the HiRISE team.