Initially, scientists planned to track the movement of sand dunes at the North Pole of the Red Planet. However, what is located on the surface between them is also of interest!
In the picture you can see parallel dark and light stripes from the upper left to the lower right edge of the area. In dark areas you can see piles of boulders at regular intervals.
What could arrange them so neatly? In the terrestrial Arctic, such features are controlled by a process called “frost throw”. This is a repeated freezing and thawing of the soil, because of which the stones are shown on the surface and organized in lines and even circles. On our planet, one temperature cycle lasts a year. But on Mars, this may be due to changes on the orbital path around the Sun.
The scale of the image - 25 cm per pixel.
