NASA scientists are studying the first picture of the red planet beamed down from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft.
The test thermal image shows a 1,300-mile-wide (2,400-kilometer-wide) swath of the south pole, including portions of its frozen cap of water and carbon dioxide ice.
The blue circular feature in the image is the Martian south pole ice cap, which currently measures more than 540 miles (1,000 kilometers) in diameter. It's now late spring in the Martian southern hemisphere and this pole will shrink as summer progresses on the red planet. Clouds of cooler air blowing off the cap can be seen in orange to the left.
Temperatures at the region now read a brutal minus 184 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 120 degrees Celsius).
More, Better Images to Come
The Odyssey craft snapped the image during nighttime on Mars, demonstrating that its camera's night-vision capability is in working order. The thermal infrared picture also shows varying temperatures on Mars' surface—taken when the unmanned Odyssey was 17,000 miles (31,000 kilometers) from Mars.
By February, it should be orbiting 250 miles (460 kilometers) above the surface.
"After we get Odyssey into its final orbit it will be much closer to Mars than when it took this image, and we'll be able to tell whether or not there are any hot springs on Mars, places where liquid water may be close to the surface," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for space science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. $297 million mission is slated to search chemicals, look for ice, and eventually serve as a relay satellite for future Mars spacecraft.
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