This image covers an interesting glacial flow inside an impact crater. The location of this crater is in the mid-latitudes, a place which normally would be too warm for water ice to exist on the surface.

However, this glacial ice was deposited at a time when the orbital elements of Mars (particularly its obliquity, or how much the planet’s orbital axis is tilted with respect to the vertical) were different and allowed ice to deposit and accumulate on the surface in such low latitudes. A thin layer of dust covering the ice protects it, and prevents the ice from readily sublimating back to the atmosphere.

We know that this ice has flowed because of its lobe shape, terminal ridges at its flow front, and other ridges and lineations across its surface, This indicates not only the flow of ice, but also its direction. Looking closer , we can see that there are two impact craters on the glacial deposit, and even though they appear “old” and weathered, this limited number of craters suggests that the flow is relatively recent (in geologic terms). We can estimate the thickness of this flow by carefully measuring the depth of the crater, and assuming average values for fresh craters of its size, and from that estimate how much of this depth has been “filled” by the flows.

ID: ESP_089469_2150
date: 27 August 2025
altitude: 296 km

https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_089469_2150
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
#Mars #science #NASA