The permanent icecap on Mars' South Pole is offset from the pole itself. An interdisciplinary team of scientists thinks it has an answer to this long-standing mystery. Published in the journal Nature, this new understanding about Mars' climate and its polar regions may suggest clues to finding water in the planet's equatorial zone - where it would be easier to land a spacecraft - and opening the door to future exploration and the search for life.

Martian South Pole (Courtesy: NASA)The southern icecap is made up mostly of carbon dioxide ice - or dry ice - which is the main component of the Martian atmosphere. It is much smaller, about a 10th the size of that at the northern pole, and it is all on one side of the pole. The other side of the pole contains a much larger area known as 'the Cryptic Region,' which is made up of seasonal ice in the winter but has low albedo, or reflectivity. The question was: why is the ice deposition so peculiar?
The scientists were able to use images from the Mars Global Surveyor, temperature information, and climate models to develop a new theory. It looks like Mars has an asymmetrical climate at its south pole. According to the researcher Dr. Barnes, the planet has huge volcanoes and mountains that extend from well north of the equator to the southern hemisphere, and two gigantic basins in the south. The wind blowing over these topographic features sets up large-scale patterns that have a profound impact on the climate. This ultimately causes a skewed deposition of ice, and so we see a skewed distribution of the icecap:):).