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To the Earth-based telescopic observer, the Martian surface outside the polar caps is characterized by red-ocher-colored bright areas on which dark markings appear superimposed. In the past, the bright areas were referred to as deserts, and the majority of large dark areas were originally called maria (Latin: “oceans” or “seas”; singular mare) in the belief that they were covered by expanses of water. No topography can be seen from Earth-based telescopes. What is observed are variations in the brightness of the surface or changes in the opacity of the atmosphere.
Surface features
The dark markings cover about one-third of the Martian surface, mostly in a band around the planet between latitudes 10° and 40° S. Their distribution is irregular, and their gross pattern has been observed to change over timescales of tens to hundreds of years. The northern hemisphere has only three such major features—Acidalia Planitia, Syrtis Major, and a dark collar around the pole—which were once considered to be shallow seas or vegetated regions. It is now known that many of Mars’s dark areas form and change as winds move dark sand around the surface or sweep areas free of bright dust. Many of the bright areas are regions of dust accumulation. The canals that figured so prominently on maps made from telescopic observations around the turn of the 20th century are not visible in close-up spacecraft images. They were almost certainly imaginary features that observers thought they saw while straining to make out objects close to the limit of resolution of their telescopes. Other features, such as the “wave of darkening” and the “blue haze” described by early observers at the telescope, are now known to result from a combination of the viewing conditions and changes in the reflective properties of the surface.
Polar regions
For telescopic observers the most striking regular changes on Mars occur at the poles. With the onset of fall in a particular hemisphere, clouds develop over the relevant polar region, and the cap, made of frozen carbon dioxide, begins to grow. The smaller cap in the north ultimately extends to 55° latitude, the larger one in the south to 50° latitude. In spring the caps recede. During summer the northern carbon dioxide cap disappears completely, leaving behind a small water-ice cap. In the south a small residual cap composed of carbon dioxide ice and water ice lingers over the summer.
The composition of the seasonal polar caps was the subject of debate for nearly 200 years. One early hypothesis—that the caps were made of water ice—can be traced to English astronomer William Herschel, who imagined them to be just like those on Earth. In 1898 an Irish scientist, George J. Stoney, questioned this theory and suggested that the caps might consist of frozen carbon dioxide, but evidence to support the idea was not available until Dutch American astronomer Gerard Kuiper’s 1947 detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In 1966 American scientists Robert Leighton and Bruce Murray published the results of a numerical model of the thermal environment on Mars that raised considerable doubt about the water-ice hypothesis. Their calculations indicated that, under Martian conditions, atmospheric carbon dioxide would freeze at the poles, and the growth and shrinkage of their model carbon dioxide caps mimicked the observed behavior of the actual caps. The model predicted that the seasonal caps were relatively thin, only a few meters deep near the poles and thinning toward the equator. Although based on simplifications of the actual conditions on Mars, their results were later confirmed by thermal and spectral measurements taken by the twin Mariner 6 and 7 spacecraft when they flew by Mars in 1969.
Transient atmospheric phenomena
Early telescopic observers noted instances in which Martian surface features were temporarily obscured. They observed both white and yellow obscurations that were correctly interpreted as due to condensed gas and dust, respectively. Telescopic observers also noted periodic disappearances of all dark markings, usually around southern summer. Again they were correctly interpreted as the result of global dust storms. Spacecraft observations have confirmed that hazes, clouds, and fogs commonly veil the surface.