Such polygons, where found on Earth, are usually only several to tens of thousands of years old, at most. On Mars, fine, bright dust can settle out of the atmosphere and eventually coat surfaces so that the contrast between dark and light terrains is hidden from view. There was an experiment on the Sojourner Rover in 1997, for example, that found dust to be settling out of the atmosphere almost all of the time during Mars Pathfinder's 83-day mission. If dust were settling on the alcoves and small channels shown here, they would not appear to be so dark relative to the surrounding, bright, dust-covered terrain. The other attribute of the picture that suggests relative youth is the preponderance of boulders and their sharp, crisp relief which indicates that they have not yet broken into finer debris, nor have they been covered up and mantled by sand or dust.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper right.
KBytes Large View 1.0 MBytes Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission.