Like Earth, Mars has ice caps laden with frozen water that could be tantalizing for future explorers.

In fact, at least one ill-fated mission - NASA’s Mars Polar Lander - attempted to reach the icy region for a closer look. The spacecraft, however, was lost during landing.

But the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft, currently in orbit around the red planet, is anything but lost.

This perspective view – the first ever produced of Mars’ north polar ice cap – shows layers of water ice and dust that lead to cliffs which drop nearly 1.2 miles (two kilometers) down to lower terrain. Dark material in the lower, caldera-like regions may be signs of volcanic ash.

Mars Express caught this view of the red planet’s ice with its High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The image was released, along with others of the planet’s polar regions, at the First Mars Express Science Conference in Noordwijk, the Netherlands last week. The other images showed signs of volcanic cones and potentially recent activity, leading researchers to ponder whether some of Mars’ volcanoes were still active today.

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum).

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