A Martian crater with a very weird rim
Click for original image.
In looking through new images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), I sometimes stumble some very strange things, with today’s cool image an example. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on May 7, 2023 by MRO’s high resolution camera, and shows the western half of a two-mile-wide crater with a very weird rim, almost as if a person had decided he wanted to reshape it with a filigree pattern.
Though only two-miles wide, this crater actually has been named Johnstown. I suspect this is because of its strange rim, prompting a research effort and the need to provide it a name. Why the rim has this repeating pattern of gaps, however, is beyond my pay grade to explain, and I have been unable to track down any research papers about it. The nearby surrounding surface suggests vaguely the possibility that this is a caldera, not an impact crater, but even so why would the rim of the caldera have these regular breaks?
The white dot marks the location of the crater, inside larger 50-mile-wide Morella Crater. The inset, created from a mosaic of MRO context camera pictures, shows the rest of Johnstown Crater at lower resolution.
The south rim of Morella is itself cut by Ganges Cavus, a 25-mile-wide basin 15,000 feet deep. With no outlets or drainage features, Ganges Cavus looks very much like a giant sinkhole, created when the surface slumped down into a void below. There are a number of these titanic sinkholes surrounding Valles Marineris. Similarly, the fissures in Noctis Labyrinthus to the west, the likely source of this grand canyon, also appear to be made of sinkholes.
Taken together, these sinks strongly suggest that Valles Marineris was first created by an underground flow that created a void, which then became a sink, and finally become the canyon we see now.
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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:
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Click for original image.
In looking through new images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), I sometimes stumble some very strange things, with today’s cool image an example. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on May 7, 2023 by MRO’s high resolution camera, and shows the western half of a two-mile-wide crater with a very weird rim, almost as if a person had decided he wanted to reshape it with a filigree pattern.
Though only two-miles wide, this crater actually has been named Johnstown. I suspect this is because of its strange rim, prompting a research effort and the need to provide it a name. Why the rim has this repeating pattern of gaps, however, is beyond my pay grade to explain, and I have been unable to track down any research papers about it. The nearby surrounding surface suggests vaguely the possibility that this is a caldera, not an impact crater, but even so why would the rim of the caldera have these regular breaks?
The white dot marks the location of the crater, inside larger 50-mile-wide Morella Crater. The inset, created from a mosaic of MRO context camera pictures, shows the rest of Johnstown Crater at lower resolution.
The south rim of Morella is itself cut by Ganges Cavus, a 25-mile-wide basin 15,000 feet deep. With no outlets or drainage features, Ganges Cavus looks very much like a giant sinkhole, created when the surface slumped down into a void below. There are a number of these titanic sinkholes surrounding Valles Marineris. Similarly, the fissures in Noctis Labyrinthus to the west, the likely source of this grand canyon, also appear to be made of sinkholes.
Taken together, these sinks strongly suggest that Valles Marineris was first created by an underground flow that created a void, which then became a sink, and finally become the canyon we see now.
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.
I wonder if it was called Johnstown because it looks like it was flooded?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood