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Frosted Chasma Boreale Dunes

June 16, 2003
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor shows frost-covered sand dunes in Chasma Boreale in the early northern spring season on Mars. Dark spots, some of them with bright halos of re-precipitated frost, have formed as the dunes begin to defrost.

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-390, 13 June 2003

This is a Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) view of frost-covered sand dunes in Chasma Boreale in the early northern spring season. Dark spots, some of them with bright halos of re-precipitated frost, have formed as the dunes begin to defrost. Most of the frost is carbon dioxide which freezes out of the atmosphere during the cold martian polar winters. This picture is located near 84.7°N, 358.8°W, and is illuminated from the lower left.

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