The mid-latitudes of Mars are full of icy terrain that fills valleys and craters, and blankets the flat plains. Some of the ice-filled craters have a distinctive appearance: the circular ridges on the surface of the icy material they contain are called “concentric crater fill.”

These ridges are parallel to the crater rim and it’s possible that ice flowed down the higher crater walls towards the crater center from all directions at once. Maybe these ridges are caused by buckling as the flowing material is squeezed into a smaller and smaller area, or maybe they are internal layers of rocky debris in the ice that are now exposed at the surface.

Mars scientists use images like these to examine the spacing of these layers and look for patterns that could indicate they’re being controlled by the climate.

ID: ESP_087323_2210
date: 13 March 2025
altitude: 296 km

https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_087323_2210
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
#Mars #science #NASA