Mariner 9 took a series of daily photos of the Martian southern polar cap between November 1971 and October 1972 showing the summer retreat of the ice caps. Does anyone know how I can get access to these very useful images?

The other images I would like to access are the daily photos of the southern polar cap, because there may be a rotational influence (???) on the way that the polar ice cap is seasonally retreating (or may be not??). The major areas of activity and hence CO2 and dust release can clearly be seen as well as the geological relationships – (I am sure they recognized these?). There are over 100 images showing the seasonal changes.

In fact, over 7300 images of mars were taken by Mariner 9 over this period.

Some of the first to be released NASA DAS 7720373 (etched terrain), NASA DAS 9807429 (desert terrain) and NASA DAS 8443199 (fractured terrain with horsts and grabens are particularly interesting:

NASA DAS 7720373 (etched terrain) has what appears to be a rotated spider with diameter of around 700m across and a central plug in the middle of the 1972 image! NASA DAS 9807429 (desert terrain) also has spiders criss-crossing the sand hills – this is a particularly valuable image. Likewise NASA DAS 8443199 (fractured terrain with horsts and grabens) has what appears to be outflow channels cutting a swathe across the grabens via transform faults.

I was also surprised that the geological comments of 1983 are- in the majority - still quite accurate and relevant. The geologists involved at the time also attributed the dark layers in the southern polar cap as: “wind eroded beds of volcanic ash and morainic dust left by retreat of the ice caps” rather than cryptic CO2 – and despite the beliefs of some they may still be proven largely correct. However, they tripped up on the very last comment: “the red color of the rocks and soil (at the Viking lander site, 1976) is probably due to highly oxidized iron-bearing minerals” (interpreted from a color enhanced image! I am sure Alex can confirm that?)

And they concluded: “no life has been detected” – whether this is correct or not does not matter. It is not what they said, but how they said it – they did not say “no life exists on mars” - which is how people interpreted it, just it has not been detected. 30 years on the same comment may or may not hold depending on ones personal bent.