ESA's Mars Express uncovers fascinating ice-related features in Utopia region

The European Space Agency's Mars Express mission has revealed more details about the planets' diverse surface features. New views captured by the mission uncover fascinating ice-related features in the Utopia region - home to the largest known impact basin in our Solar System.

The latest images show a slice of Utopia Planitia, a plain that fills one of three major basins in the northern hemisphere of Mars - Utopia - and has a diameter of 3,300 km. Large, smooth patches of surface known as ‘mantled deposits’ can be seen on the left and right of the image. According to the agency, these are thick layers of ice- and dust-rich material that have smoothed the surface and were likely deposited as snow back when the Red Planet's rotational axis was much more tilted than it is today.

At the centre, the two largest impact craters can be seen surrounded by double-layered mounds of material. The second-largest crater in this image showcases a texture known as ‘brain terrain’, where material has become deformed and warped in a concentric pattern, resembling the complex patterns and ridges found on the surface of the human brain.

To the right of the brain-textured crater lies a dark-coloured region, which formed after the ice-rich ground contracted and cracked at low temperatures. This formed polygonal patterns and fractures that subsequently captured dark dust blown across Mars by wind, giving it a dark appearance.

In addition, scalloped depressions with varying shapes and sizes and depths of several tens of metres are visible throughout this image. According to ESA, these features are the result of ground ice either melting or turning to gas, which then causes the surface to weaken and collapse.

New views from ESA’s #MarsExpress reveal fascinating ice-related features in #Mars’ Utopia region – home to the largest known impact basin not only on the Red Planet, but in the Solar System.Read more: https://t.co/KVKaKt4WNH pic.twitter.com/VXYUanMiQB

— ESA (@esa) March 30, 2022

Mars Express is Europe's first mission to the Red Planet. The mission's primary objective is to study the martian atmosphere and climate, the planet's structure, its mineralogy and its geology, and to search for traces of water.