When Hubble took this photograph of Mars in 1999, Mars was
87 million km (54 million miles) away, or more than 200
times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
The photo was made at the height of Martian summer in the
northern hemisphere. The carbon dioxide (dry ice) portion
of the north polar ice cap has largely evaporated, revealing
the permanent cap of water ice underneath. A cyclonic storm
is churning nearby.
STORMS ON MARS
The Hubble Space Telescope captured this view
of the planet Mars in the spring of 1999. Surface features
as small as 12 miles (19 kilometers) across are visible, including
numerous craters, cloud-shrouded volcanoes, and a massive
cyclonic storm churning near the north polar ice cap.
![Hide/Show Captions](javascript:AW_Conditional('document.hidden','MM_swapImage("text","","graphics/mars_image_text.gif","hideshow","","graphics/planets_captions.gif",1); document.hidden = false;','MM_swapImage("text","","graphics/shim.gif","hideshow","","graphics/planets_captions_f2.gif",1); document.hidden = true;')){kind=small}
