A Martian Southern Hemisphere Mystery – What are these?

Mars Orbital Camera (MOC) narrow-angle image M08-04688. Date of image: October 19, 1999. Spacecraft altitude: 370.13 kilometers. Longitude of image center: 284.38 degrees West; Latitude of image center: 82.02 degrees South. Image by Malin Space Science Systems.

April 8, 2001 Washington, D. C. - NASA successfully launched its Odyssey probe to Mars on Saturday, April 7. The spacecraft is expected to reach the red planet on October 24th after a 286 million mile trip. After aerobraking to get into a lower orbit, instruments aboard will be able to analyze surface rock chemistry and take images in both color and infra red. One place that would be very interesting to visit again is the South Pole where the Mars Orbital Camera (MOC) took the 1999 photograph above that provoked writer Arthur C. Clarke (2001 and 2010) to question if the images were biological and not geological.

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