A glacier filled canyon on Mars?
Click for full image.
The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on September 9, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the northern half of a 15-mile wide canyon on Mars whose floor appears to be completely filled by a glacier. The full picture shows both the north and south rims, and captures the canyon’s outlet from the southern cratered highlands into the chaotic terrain of Deuteronilus Mensae, the region of Mars I like to call glacier country. This region of canyons and mesas forms the transition zone down to the northern lowland plains, and is a region where almost every MRO image shows glacial-type features.
The size and age of this glacial feature is what makes it stand out. First, note the craters on its surface. The glacier has to be quite old and inactive for a long time for those craters to still exist as they appear. Any movement would have distorted them, and they show little distortion.
The overview map below gives a sense of this glacier’s size.
The black rectangle shows the area covered by the full image. Mamers Valles is a 300 mile long canyon that drains into Deuteronilus Mensae at this point. Today’s full image covers the full width of its eastern outlet, showing that this glacier fills the canyon. Other MRO images further up the canyon to the west (here and here) show the same thing, even though to the west Mamers Valles widens considerably. Yet, it is still filled with this glacier-like flow. (See also this earlier post on Mamers Valles.)
There is a lot of buried ice here, and it has been here for a long time. Such data has suggested to scientists the possibility that many of Mars’s meandering river-like canyons like Mamers might not have been formed by fast-flowing liquid water, but by slowly flowing glacial ice. We do not know this yet, and there has only been a few studies pointing in this direction. Still, the evidence is enticing, and if true could help explain the biggest geological mystery of Mars. It shows a lot of surface features and geology that suggests the past existence of liquid water. Yet its thin atmosphere and cold temperature make flowing liquid water impossible. And no model has yet convincingly created the right climate conditions in the Martian past to have made liquid water possible.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
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Click for full image.
The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on September 9, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the northern half of a 15-mile wide canyon on Mars whose floor appears to be completely filled by a glacier. The full picture shows both the north and south rims, and captures the canyon’s outlet from the southern cratered highlands into the chaotic terrain of Deuteronilus Mensae, the region of Mars I like to call glacier country. This region of canyons and mesas forms the transition zone down to the northern lowland plains, and is a region where almost every MRO image shows glacial-type features.
The size and age of this glacial feature is what makes it stand out. First, note the craters on its surface. The glacier has to be quite old and inactive for a long time for those craters to still exist as they appear. Any movement would have distorted them, and they show little distortion.
The overview map below gives a sense of this glacier’s size.
The black rectangle shows the area covered by the full image. Mamers Valles is a 300 mile long canyon that drains into Deuteronilus Mensae at this point. Today’s full image covers the full width of its eastern outlet, showing that this glacier fills the canyon. Other MRO images further up the canyon to the west (here and here) show the same thing, even though to the west Mamers Valles widens considerably. Yet, it is still filled with this glacier-like flow. (See also this earlier post on Mamers Valles.)
There is a lot of buried ice here, and it has been here for a long time. Such data has suggested to scientists the possibility that many of Mars’s meandering river-like canyons like Mamers might not have been formed by fast-flowing liquid water, but by slowly flowing glacial ice. We do not know this yet, and there has only been a few studies pointing in this direction. Still, the evidence is enticing, and if true could help explain the biggest geological mystery of Mars. It shows a lot of surface features and geology that suggests the past existence of liquid water. Yet its thin atmosphere and cold temperature make flowing liquid water impossible. And no model has yet convincingly created the right climate conditions in the Martian past to have made liquid water possible.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
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