A gecko on Mars
Click for full image.
Today’s cool image is also today’s picture of the day from the science team of the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO. That picture, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, can be seen to the right. As the caption authors Sharon Wilson and Sarah Sutton write:
The smooth volcanic surfaces in the Gordii Fossae region are sometimes interrupted by long, narrow troughs, or fissures. These fissures form when underground faults, possibly involving magma movement, reach the near-surface, allowing material to collapse into pits or an elongated trough. This fissure appears to have erupted material that flowed onto the surface.
If you use your imagination, this trough resembles a gecko with its long tail and web-shaped feet!
This impression is even more evident in the wider image taken by MRO’s context camera below.
Click for full image.
To my eye, the gecko is about to swallow a very big bug. It also appears to me to be followed by second, third, and maybe a third gecko, less visible because they are partly hidden by mist.
I know, I know, I am letting my imagination run away with me. What the wider image actually illustrates quite clearly are the underground fissures in this region, all aligned in a northwest to a southeast direction.
The overview map below helps even more to explain why these fissures exist. When Mount Olympus was growing, it imposed two major changes on this landscape. First the upward pressure of the volcano’s magma caused radiating cracks to occur in the surrounding terrain. Second, the volcano flooded that surrounding terrain with lava, producing the smooth lava flood plains. Because those lava flood plains are relatively young, they have few craters.
The result is a very smooth surface periodically interspersed with long narrow sinks. That one of those sinks now can be imagined by Earthlings as resembling a gecko is mere happenstance.
The overview map also underlines the difference between lava flows on Earth and on Mars. The distance from the caldera’s eastern rim and this fissure is about 140 miles. While much of the lava here probably came from much closer vents, the ability of Martian lava to flow faster and farther means that the volcano was able to inundate a much larger area than is possible on Earth.
When human geologists finally get to Olympus Mons I suspect they are going to end up mapping out a volcanic history that is truly monumental, far exceeding anything they can presently imagine.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Click for full image.
Today’s cool image is also today’s picture of the day from the science team of the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO. That picture, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, can be seen to the right. As the caption authors Sharon Wilson and Sarah Sutton write:
The smooth volcanic surfaces in the Gordii Fossae region are sometimes interrupted by long, narrow troughs, or fissures. These fissures form when underground faults, possibly involving magma movement, reach the near-surface, allowing material to collapse into pits or an elongated trough. This fissure appears to have erupted material that flowed onto the surface.
If you use your imagination, this trough resembles a gecko with its long tail and web-shaped feet!
This impression is even more evident in the wider image taken by MRO’s context camera below.
Click for full image.
To my eye, the gecko is about to swallow a very big bug. It also appears to me to be followed by second, third, and maybe a third gecko, less visible because they are partly hidden by mist.
I know, I know, I am letting my imagination run away with me. What the wider image actually illustrates quite clearly are the underground fissures in this region, all aligned in a northwest to a southeast direction.
The overview map below helps even more to explain why these fissures exist. When Mount Olympus was growing, it imposed two major changes on this landscape. First the upward pressure of the volcano’s magma caused radiating cracks to occur in the surrounding terrain. Second, the volcano flooded that surrounding terrain with lava, producing the smooth lava flood plains. Because those lava flood plains are relatively young, they have few craters.
The result is a very smooth surface periodically interspersed with long narrow sinks. That one of those sinks now can be imagined by Earthlings as resembling a gecko is mere happenstance.
The overview map also underlines the difference between lava flows on Earth and on Mars. The distance from the caldera’s eastern rim and this fissure is about 140 miles. While much of the lava here probably came from much closer vents, the ability of Martian lava to flow faster and farther means that the volcano was able to inundate a much larger area than is possible on Earth.
When human geologists finally get to Olympus Mons I suspect they are going to end up mapping out a volcanic history that is truly monumental, far exceeding anything they can presently imagine.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Comparing to the lava flows currently happening in the Canary Islands and on Iceland, it would appear that these martian flows were liquid for some time, due to their smoothness.
Yeah, and you can’t go anywhere with out the damn thing trying to sell you insurance.
Outstanding image! Mars waits, full of mystery.