Word: polars
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...early astronomers, it seemed obvious that there was water on Mars. What else could form the white polar caps that shrank so noticeably every spring and began to grow again in the fall? And what could possibly produce the springtime darkening of the Martian surface other than rapid vegetation growth stimulated by water released from the melting caps...
...Kennedy, which is at latitude 28° north. Thus, a rocket fired in Guiana can lift about 24% more payload with the same thrust than one fired at Cape Kennedy. Moreover, Guiana has a 120° stretch of open water north and east of it that is ideal for polar-orbit launchings. As a result, France, forced out of its former space station in the Algerian desert two years ago, is bringing French Guiana into the space age with a $102 million investment in launch pads and their support complexes...
Five days later, if all goes well, Mariner 7, a second Mars probe, will make a sweep across the south polar regions of the planet, shooting closeup photographs of the white polar cap and areas that appear to change color seasonally. Mariner 7 is scheduled to be launched on March 24, but will take less time than its predecessor to make the trip; its trajectory is different and the Earth will have moved some 25 million miles closer to Mars during the month that separates the shots...
Between them, the two probes should photograph about 20% of the surface of Mars, compared to the 1% covered by Mariner 4. In addition, batteries of instruments aboard the spacecraft will measure surface temperatures and analyze the composition of the atmosphere and of the south polar...
...distinguish objects less than 900 ft. across. Says Robert Leighton, a California Institute of Technology physicist who is in charge of Mariner's TV experiments: "At the worst, we should be able to kill a lot of old legends about the dark lines being canals carrying water from polar ice caps to oases in the desert-or the ones that say the vast regions that change color every spring are vegetation...