ISLAMABAD – As the holiday season swiftly approaches, even our planetary neighbors are getting into the spirit – as shown by this perfect pair of festive silhouettes spotted by ESA’s Mars Express. The defined wings of an angelic figure, complete with halo, can be seen sweeping up and off the top of the frame in this image from Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera, while a large heart sits just right of center. These shapes appear to jump out of the light tan — or, in the spirit of the season, eggnog-colored! — surface of Mars; their dark color is a result of the composition of the constituent dune fields, which largely comprise sands rich in dark, rock-forming minerals that are also found on Earth (namely pyroxene and olivine). This ethereal scene is found in the south polar region of Mars, with the pole itself located directly out of frame to the right (south).
The south pole is typically covered in a 1.5 km-thick ice cap measuring around 400 km across and with a volume of 1.6 million cubic kilometres, just over 12% of which is water ice. The rest of the cap is largely composed of ‘dry ice’ (solid carbon dioxide), which freezes from the atmosphere during winter and then sublimates (turns from a solid to a gas) in the summer. As Mars’ southern hemisphere is currently experiencing summer, this image shows the planet’s southern polar ice stores at their lowest annual levels.
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