Click CMO - CMO Clicks (6) in CMO No189

CMO CLICKS (6)

The north Polar Cap revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope

  The images of the npc here presented are derived from the HST images clicked and obtained from the Internet Web Site cited in the text. The original images were taken by HST's WFPC2 on 10 March 1997 (089°Ls). The images were press released on 20 March (see Jim BELL's IMW Newsletter at page 2042 in #187).

The images here presented only show the north polar region (npr):
The top image is the one seen near from LCM=160°W,
the middle near from LCM= 210°W
and the bottom one near from LCM=305°W.

The images of the npr show that the details of the npc and its surroundings are not so different from those shown in the images obtained in the 1970s by Mariner 9 and/or Viking Orbitors. It is very impressive to be able to find a white spot which may be identified with the Korolev crater (196°W, 73°N) shown already in the Mariner Map in 1972 cited in No177 p1872. Is it possible to consider that the snow on the crater has remained iced more than twenty years?
Other details around Rima Borealis look also the same. Thus we may be allowed to think that the npc remnant including the rifts near summer has repeatedly shown the same aspect for a long time.

(Mk & Mn)