Some scientists think Mars' north pole looks like a hockey puck.
Others liken it to an icy meringue. Researchers discussed the new three-dimensional images supplied by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft on Sunday at the American Geophysical Union meeting here. More details on the Martian pole will be published Friday in the journal Science. It's the latest discovery in what is now a two-year mission by the spacecraft to orbit the Red Planet and capture images of its surface with a variety of instruments, providing detail that is not available even for some locations on Earth. The north pole images have left many researchers intrigued, but perhaps a little disappointed.