A splat on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on October 31, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labelled simply as a “Terrain Sample”, it was not taken as part of any specific science research but because the MRO science team need to regularly take pictures to maintain the camera’s temperature. When such engineering images are required they try to pick spots of some interest, but sometimes the resulting picture is somewhat bland.
If you look at the full image, you will see that blandness generally describes it. However, in the upper left corner was a most intriguing-looking crater, which I have focused on above. From all appearances, when this impact happened the ground was quite soft, almost like mud, and thus the ejecta splattered away not as individual rocks and debris but as a flow.
The map below gives a little context, but really doesn’t explain this crater fully.
The white box indicates the location of this crater. It is right on the edge of the Medusae Fossae Formation, a gigantic field of volcanic ash about the size of India from which most of the dust on Mars is thought to come.
However, the number of craters in the full image suggests we are not looking at that ash field. Other images of the Medusae formation (see this one for example) generally show a craterless terrain, the craters buried by the more recent ash fall.
The number of craters also suggests that the surface here is not a lava flood plain. The nearby recent lava flows, such as the Athabasca Valles flood lava, wipe away the craters to leave a smooth plain (see this image for example).
It is possible the craters were caused by the spray of secondary ejecta from a more recent nearby large impact. To the southwest of this image is such a larger crater, but I do not know when that impact occurred.
The latitude is 2 degrees south, so this is right on the equator. We would not expect to see buried ice here, or at least, if there is, it will be deep underground and would likely not have caused this feature.
The only explanation that comes to my mind is that this impact is old, and that it happened when the planet’s equatorial tilt was much greater, and this location was at a higher latitude, when ice might have been more present.
To put it mildly, I do not take that explanation very seriously. We have here a mystery, something that is not unusual when you look closely at the surface of Mars. This mystery however is not readily explained by what I so far know of Mars.
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:
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on October 31, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labelled simply as a “Terrain Sample”, it was not taken as part of any specific science research but because the MRO science team need to regularly take pictures to maintain the camera’s temperature. When such engineering images are required they try to pick spots of some interest, but sometimes the resulting picture is somewhat bland.
If you look at the full image, you will see that blandness generally describes it. However, in the upper left corner was a most intriguing-looking crater, which I have focused on above. From all appearances, when this impact happened the ground was quite soft, almost like mud, and thus the ejecta splattered away not as individual rocks and debris but as a flow.
The map below gives a little context, but really doesn’t explain this crater fully.
The white box indicates the location of this crater. It is right on the edge of the Medusae Fossae Formation, a gigantic field of volcanic ash about the size of India from which most of the dust on Mars is thought to come.
However, the number of craters in the full image suggests we are not looking at that ash field. Other images of the Medusae formation (see this one for example) generally show a craterless terrain, the craters buried by the more recent ash fall.
The number of craters also suggests that the surface here is not a lava flood plain. The nearby recent lava flows, such as the Athabasca Valles flood lava, wipe away the craters to leave a smooth plain (see this image for example).
It is possible the craters were caused by the spray of secondary ejecta from a more recent nearby large impact. To the southwest of this image is such a larger crater, but I do not know when that impact occurred.
The latitude is 2 degrees south, so this is right on the equator. We would not expect to see buried ice here, or at least, if there is, it will be deep underground and would likely not have caused this feature.
The only explanation that comes to my mind is that this impact is old, and that it happened when the planet’s equatorial tilt was much greater, and this location was at a higher latitude, when ice might have been more present.
To put it mildly, I do not take that explanation very seriously. We have here a mystery, something that is not unusual when you look closely at the surface of Mars. This mystery however is not readily explained by what I so far know of Mars.
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.
So, what on Mars is that cluster of craters to the upper right? Some sort of rubble like hitting Mars?
DougSpace: That cluster could either have been a meteorite breaking up as it came in, or a bunch of secondaries from another impact. In either case, I suspect they are all related to the same event..
I searched over the entire picture and only found one more splat comet impact, but it’s much older and less defined. It’s slightly above exact center of the original picture. I’m thinking that this unusual crater is an anomaly, not common. It probably says more about the composition of the meteor than it does about the landscape? No, I guess not.
An ice ball would have vaporized, not created mud.
But what is very interesting is the blow hole window in the lower left. Another window near by, center bottom and a small volcano at the far right. The wispy shadows don’t match the ridge line, that’s unusual. I’m thinking they captured wind blowing sand casting a shadow. Or it could be just unusual looking dark dunes downhill from the volcano. Not so bland after all.
I believe the common understanding is for a meteor to consist of something akin to a hard rock.
What if the meteor was much softer, something that would deform quicker than the surface it struck?
These Martian splats are common are they not?