Science Art: Mars – Cloudy North Polar Cap, by Andrea Luck

Scientific illustration of the North Pole of Mars, as photographed by a Chinese space probe, looking like a nautilus shell.
Scientific illustration of the North Pole of Mars, as photographed by a Chinese space probe, looking like a nautilus shell.

Really, I guess the full title of this should be: Mars – Cloudy North Polar Cap – CNSA Tianwen-1.

“CNSA” is the China National Space Administration – this is China’s answer to NASA, and they’ve been checking out Mars.

Andrea Luck put together two images from the Tianwen-1 Mars mission, from CNSA/CLEP/PEC/MoRIC. You can find more great stuff on Luck’s Flickr account here.

It intrigues me how much this looks like something oceanic, a chambered nautilus, islands, or clouds over an open sea. There are no oceans on Mars, except tricks our eyes play on us. But maybe there were, once. You can see that, right?