The European Space Agency has captured magnificent pictures of the North Pole and Mars' ice caps. Mars' North Pole has a spiral shape.
Researchers have used High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA's Mars Express to create a spectacular mosaic of Mars' North Polar Region. ESA or European Space Agency has described Mars' North Pole to have a swirling spiral. The mosaic was made from 32 individual orbit 'strips' captured between 2004 and 2010. The picture is said to be about a million square kilometres.
Since it is winter season, the North Pole has an added layered to its thickness. It has been always there but because temperatures have reached 30 percent of the carbon dioxide that made it to the ice caps of the North Pole. If it is summer, the carbon dioxide goes back to its gas state and leaves the Mars' North Pole ice caps. The ice caps then turn to water-ice layers.
According to Sci News it is geologically made up of frozen carbon dioxide and ice water. It also has a volume that is equivalent to Greenland's ice sheet on Earth. During winter, the temperature in Mars reaches below negative 193 degrees Fahrenheit or negative 125 degrees Celsius. It is double of what the Earth is experiencing because Mars orbit is also twice the Earth's orbit.
The shaped of the ice caps was said to be affected by strong winds in Mars. It blows from upper center to its lower edges. After that, Coriolis twists it. One outcome if this event is the Chasma Boreale. Scientists have concluded that the plummeting canyon is believed to be older. It has formed even before those spirals that exist now. It is also growing deeper each time a new layer of ice is forming around it.
With these images, scientists are hoping to know more about the climate in Mars. They are also hoping to know more about other aspects of the red planet.
