Barren Mars
Click for full resolution panorama. For original images, go here, here, and here.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! The panorama above was created by me using three pictures taken today (here, here, and here) by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Perseverance. The top of the rover can be seen to the right, as well as its tracks.
The overview map to the right provides the context. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present position. The white dotted line its past travel route, with the red dotted line indicating the planned route. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the panorama.
Though the planned route had the rover head west and then south, the rover team instead had the rover retreat eastward about 450 feet the past few days, where it sits now. At the previous western location the team had attempted to find a location to drill a sample core, but apparently the ground was not satisfactory. By retreating to this previous location it could be they think they will have better luck.
What strikes me about this hilly terrain just outside Jezero Crater is its barrenness. You would have great difficulty anywhere on Earth finding terrain so empty of life. On Mars however there is nothing but dirt and rocks, for as far as the eye can see.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Click for full resolution panorama. For original images, go here, here, and here.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! The panorama above was created by me using three pictures taken today (here, here, and here) by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Perseverance. The top of the rover can be seen to the right, as well as its tracks.
The overview map to the right provides the context. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present position. The white dotted line its past travel route, with the red dotted line indicating the planned route. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the panorama.
Though the planned route had the rover head west and then south, the rover team instead had the rover retreat eastward about 450 feet the past few days, where it sits now. At the previous western location the team had attempted to find a location to drill a sample core, but apparently the ground was not satisfactory. By retreating to this previous location it could be they think they will have better luck.
What strikes me about this hilly terrain just outside Jezero Crater is its barrenness. You would have great difficulty anywhere on Earth finding terrain so empty of life. On Mars however there is nothing but dirt and rocks, for as far as the eye can see.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
It’s funny since I just took a walk along the “beach” at the Buffalo Bill Reservoir this afternoon. The lake level is down something like 38 feet from full, and along the Bartlett Lane side there is an enormous amount of shoreline exposed. What’s normally under 30 or 35 feet of water is now open to the air, and it stretches for hundreds of yards out to the frozen surface of the water.
This “beach” ranges from soccer ball-sized rocks, through cobble-stone-sized, and then down to river-rock-sized, but also includes huge spans of shingle, where slabs of rock are exposed. Since these areas are normally underwater for almost all of the growing season, nothing grows here and it is completely barren.
If only it were reddish colored rather than brown it would greatly resemble most of the landscape shown in the pictures of the Martian surface. With -20°F temperatures and bone-dry humidity it might be a good place to initially field-test future rovers.
Blackwing1: We all know that if that beach was to stay exposed for several weeks you would begin to see some plant life growing there. On Mars that ground has been exposed for many many centuries, and it remained barren for that entire time.
Elton John was right. It appears that Mr. Musk may make it to Mars while still young enough to have children, so we may get to find out. The more I see of Mars, the less I want to go. Without a professional interest, not much reason to go. Robert says centuries, but much of the terrain age is measured in Mya, if not Gya. That’s bleak.
Blair Ivey: It is important to remember that the rovers and landers have all been sent to the dry equatorial regions, areas that are not great for settlement. No water.
This choice has partly been for engineering, to make landings less risky, but more and more it has been dictated by the choices of geologists, who really aren’t focused on finding ideal locations for colonies.
I strongly suspect the latitudes above 30 degrees will be less barren, at least in terms of water and ice. And give those colonies water and they can quickly make their colonies green.
“Nothing to do but throw rocks at tin cans, and you gotta bring your own tin cans!” From Forbidden Planet.
Personally, I’d be much happier living on a rotating station near Earth than on (or below) the surface of Mars. 20-year-old me would not have been so picky.
I’m not sure which is the more difficult challenge to build. Neither is in any way easy. I’m definitely a Luna-first person. If we (whoever “we” actually is) can’t build infrastructure on the moon, we have no chance on Mars.
On the grim/macabre side, it would be strange to look up at the moon and think, “those poor people who are entombed there forever” while most people never see Mars so it wouldn’t seem like an orbiting graveyard, even if it were. Of course, time would fix that. No one looks at the east coast of the US and ponders the fate of Jamestown.