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The Korolev Crater on Mars is filled with a 1.8-kilometer-thick layer of ice all year long—or 668 Martian days, or “brine.” How does this actually happen?
The 82 kilometer large crater is located in the northern lowlands, not far from the North Pole. The Korolev crater is a so-called cold trap. The air above the ice cools and sinks, leaving it as a layer of cold air above the ice. The ice does not warm up and therefore cannot disappear.
The space photo of the week is a beautiful image of the European Mars Express from 2018. Here you can clearly see that the crater rim is also covered with ice in places. It’s a shame that the distance between Earth and Mars is relatively large, because in this crater it must be great to ski from one crater wall to the other.
To obtain this stunning image, scientists used this photo of Korolev Crater and combined it with a digital terrain model of the crater and its immediate surroundings.
The European Space Agency also shot a beautiful video that gives the impression that the viewer is flying over the crater. Particularly!
The crater is named after Sergei Korolev, a Ukrainian physicist and engineer. After World War II, he designed ballistic missiles and became one of the main founders of the Soviet space program.
Over the past few decades, space telescopes and satellites have captured beautiful images of nebulae, galaxies, stellar nurseries and planets. Every weekend we take one or more impressive space photos from the archive. Enjoy all the photos? Check them out on this page.
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