Bumps and holes in the Martian mid-latitudes
Click for full image.
Today’s cool image to the right, taken on January 6, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and cropped and reduced to post here, focuses on what appears to be a volcanic bulge on the southeastern edge of the great Tharsis Bulge, home to Mars’ biggest volcanoes.
The terrain gives the appearance of hard and rough lava field, ancient and significantly scoured with time. The bumps and mounds suggest nodules that remained as the surrounding softer material eroded away. The holes suggest impact craters, but their relatively few number suggest that this ground was laid down in more recent volcanic events after the late heavy bombardment that occurred in the early solar system about 4 billion years ago. Since it is thought that the big Martian volcanoes stopped being active about a billion years ago, this scenario seems to fit.
However, the terrain also has hints of possible glacial features, as seen in the large crater-like depression in the image’s center. Below is a zoom in to that crater to highlight the flowlike features in its southern interior.
At 45 degrees south latitude it would not be surprising if there were glacial features here. Moreover, some of the impacts in the wider photo above have some resemblance to high latitude northern lowland impacts that look like they smashed into an ice layer close to the surface, melting that ice and causing the crater to have a splattered look.
These features however might not be glacial. The evidence is too slim, and requires more data. In the southern hemisphere the southern half of this crater would be more exposed to sunlight, while its northern half would be more in shadow. We should therefore expect the glacial features to survive longer in the crater’s northern half, not its southern half. Still, if these features are glacial then they do suggest sublimation of that ice by sunlight.
Questions upon questions and mysteries upon mysteries. It can drive you crazy with a desire to get them answered and explained. At the same time, making up explanations based on limited knowledge is very dangerous. Such hypotheses almost always turn out wrong. We need more data to really explain what we see here.
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
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P.O.Box 1262
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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 to the right, taken on January 6, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and cropped and reduced to post here, focuses on what appears to be a volcanic bulge on the southeastern edge of the great Tharsis Bulge, home to Mars’ biggest volcanoes.
The terrain gives the appearance of hard and rough lava field, ancient and significantly scoured with time. The bumps and mounds suggest nodules that remained as the surrounding softer material eroded away. The holes suggest impact craters, but their relatively few number suggest that this ground was laid down in more recent volcanic events after the late heavy bombardment that occurred in the early solar system about 4 billion years ago. Since it is thought that the big Martian volcanoes stopped being active about a billion years ago, this scenario seems to fit.
However, the terrain also has hints of possible glacial features, as seen in the large crater-like depression in the image’s center. Below is a zoom in to that crater to highlight the flowlike features in its southern interior.
At 45 degrees south latitude it would not be surprising if there were glacial features here. Moreover, some of the impacts in the wider photo above have some resemblance to high latitude northern lowland impacts that look like they smashed into an ice layer close to the surface, melting that ice and causing the crater to have a splattered look.
These features however might not be glacial. The evidence is too slim, and requires more data. In the southern hemisphere the southern half of this crater would be more exposed to sunlight, while its northern half would be more in shadow. We should therefore expect the glacial features to survive longer in the crater’s northern half, not its southern half. Still, if these features are glacial then they do suggest sublimation of that ice by sunlight.
Questions upon questions and mysteries upon mysteries. It can drive you crazy with a desire to get them answered and explained. At the same time, making up explanations based on limited knowledge is very dangerous. Such hypotheses almost always turn out wrong. We need more data to really explain what we see here.
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.
making up explanations based on limited knowledge is very dangerous. Such hypotheses almost always turn out wrong. We need more data to really explain what we see here.
What a refreshing attitude – not to mention a realistic one.