Bumpy frozen lava on Mars
Click for original image.
Cool picture time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 30, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was most likely taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s temperature.
The image is fascinating nonetheless, as the landscape is typically alien for Mars. What caused the many random ridges and knobs? Why are there oblong areas that are smooth and have no ridges? And why is there dark material inside that crater that appears to have been blown out to the northeast? If you click on the image to see the full image, not all the craters look this way. One has a similar dark feature, but others are as bland as the entire terrain.
The overview map below only increases these mysteries, even if it does provide some further data.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, on the outer southwest edge of the vast flood lava plain that surrounds the giant volcano Arsia Mons, the southernmost volcano in the line of three that stand a top the Tharsis Bulge.
Clearly this is flood lava from those volcanoes, but that really doesn’t explain any of the questions I posed above. One might say that this lava filled in the low hollows in a very rough terrain of ridges and craters, but this explanation seems incomplete. What formed the very rough terrain? And those oblong shapes do not match most impact crater shapes.
Nor does this explain why only some craters here have dark material that surrounds the ground to the northwest. Their directional nature suggests the direction of the prevailing winds, but provides no explanation for anything else.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for original image.
Cool picture time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 30, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was most likely taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s temperature.
The image is fascinating nonetheless, as the landscape is typically alien for Mars. What caused the many random ridges and knobs? Why are there oblong areas that are smooth and have no ridges? And why is there dark material inside that crater that appears to have been blown out to the northeast? If you click on the image to see the full image, not all the craters look this way. One has a similar dark feature, but others are as bland as the entire terrain.
The overview map below only increases these mysteries, even if it does provide some further data.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, on the outer southwest edge of the vast flood lava plain that surrounds the giant volcano Arsia Mons, the southernmost volcano in the line of three that stand a top the Tharsis Bulge.
Clearly this is flood lava from those volcanoes, but that really doesn’t explain any of the questions I posed above. One might say that this lava filled in the low hollows in a very rough terrain of ridges and craters, but this explanation seems incomplete. What formed the very rough terrain? And those oblong shapes do not match most impact crater shapes.
Nor does this explain why only some craters here have dark material that surrounds the ground to the northwest. Their directional nature suggests the direction of the prevailing winds, but provides no explanation for anything else.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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