Pictures of Mars

The European Space agency and NASA may have overlooked the fact,
but Mars just happens to have two polar caps.

It would be nice to see some pictures of them in addition to
the usual 'red' pictures.

I have an idea that the orbit of the European probe would enable
polar pics to be taken.

Merv the Hubble took some great pictures. I have one picture I'm
looking at as I type showing Mars during a global dust storm and the
frosty white poles. Bert

Merv posted:

The European Space agency and NASA may have overlooked the fact,
but Mars just happens to have two polar caps.

It would be nice to see some pictures of them in addition to
the usual 'red' pictures.

No, NASA at least has not "overlooked" the polar caps. There are dozens of
Mars Global Surveyor images of features within the caps, and their overall
growth and shrinkage with the seasons has been followed via wide-area images
from the orbiting probes for quite some time now. In fact, the changing
thickness of the caps was monitored by the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter while
it was operating in its active mode. Try the Mars Global Surveyor site for
many of these images: http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/
or try the Malin Space Science Systems Captioned image releases on the polar
regions: http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/themes/POLAR.html

Clear skies to you.


--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

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