A spray of Martian meteorites
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on October 26, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It is what the camera team calls a “terrain sample,” meaning it was not specifically requested by a researcher but was instead chosen by the camera team because they need to regularly take images to maintain the camera’s temperature. When they do this, they try to pick a location that hasn’t been photographed in high resolution previously, and that might have some interesting features. Sometimes the photo is boring. Sometimes they hit pay dirt.
In this case, the photo captured an small impact crater, about 1,300 feet across, surrounded by a spray of secondary impacts. The color portion of the image shows what I suspect are dust devil tracks cutting across a surface that, because of its blue tint, is either rough or has frost or ice within it. At 48 degrees north latitude, the possibility of the latter is high, especially because this location is northwest of the Erebus mountains, where SpaceX has its prime Starship candidate landing zone and where scientists suspect ice is readily available very close to the surface. The overview map below shows this context.
This crater’s location, indicated by the black box, is also 250 miles southwest of 74-mile-wide Milankovic Crater, where scientists have discovered numerous scarps with almost pure ice layers exposed.
The spray of small secondary impacts surrounding this small crater in the first image above likely came from the central impact. The central impact however could very well be a secondary impact itself, ejecta thrown off by the bolide that smacked into Mars to create Milankovic.
The hypothesis is reinforced by taking a look at the immediately surrounding terrain.
Click for full image.
To the right is a wider view, with the white box showing the location of the top image. It was taken by MRO’s context camera. As you can see, this small impact crater is only one of many, scattered across a relatively smooth and flat region interspersed with what look like small volcanoes.
All of the small craters look to be about the same age. Moreover, that there are no large or more eroded craters here suggests that the small volcanoes, which either formed from magma or mud pushing upward, had covered over the older terrain, became inactive, and then the Milankovic impact occurred, showering this region with secondary material.
One last item: Note the nature of the small secondary craters in the first image. All look like the kind of depression you see when you drop a stone into slushy ice. The bright blue color of the material in the secondary craters in the color strip also suggests ice.
This shouldn’t be surprising. At this high latitude, north of what is believed to be a very icy region near the Erebus Mountains, ice should be plentiful, just before the surface.
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
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on October 26, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It is what the camera team calls a “terrain sample,” meaning it was not specifically requested by a researcher but was instead chosen by the camera team because they need to regularly take images to maintain the camera’s temperature. When they do this, they try to pick a location that hasn’t been photographed in high resolution previously, and that might have some interesting features. Sometimes the photo is boring. Sometimes they hit pay dirt.
In this case, the photo captured an small impact crater, about 1,300 feet across, surrounded by a spray of secondary impacts. The color portion of the image shows what I suspect are dust devil tracks cutting across a surface that, because of its blue tint, is either rough or has frost or ice within it. At 48 degrees north latitude, the possibility of the latter is high, especially because this location is northwest of the Erebus mountains, where SpaceX has its prime Starship candidate landing zone and where scientists suspect ice is readily available very close to the surface. The overview map below shows this context.
This crater’s location, indicated by the black box, is also 250 miles southwest of 74-mile-wide Milankovic Crater, where scientists have discovered numerous scarps with almost pure ice layers exposed.
The spray of small secondary impacts surrounding this small crater in the first image above likely came from the central impact. The central impact however could very well be a secondary impact itself, ejecta thrown off by the bolide that smacked into Mars to create Milankovic.
The hypothesis is reinforced by taking a look at the immediately surrounding terrain.
Click for full image.
To the right is a wider view, with the white box showing the location of the top image. It was taken by MRO’s context camera. As you can see, this small impact crater is only one of many, scattered across a relatively smooth and flat region interspersed with what look like small volcanoes.
All of the small craters look to be about the same age. Moreover, that there are no large or more eroded craters here suggests that the small volcanoes, which either formed from magma or mud pushing upward, had covered over the older terrain, became inactive, and then the Milankovic impact occurred, showering this region with secondary material.
One last item: Note the nature of the small secondary craters in the first image. All look like the kind of depression you see when you drop a stone into slushy ice. The bright blue color of the material in the secondary craters in the color strip also suggests ice.
This shouldn’t be surprising. At this high latitude, north of what is believed to be a very icy region near the Erebus Mountains, ice should be plentiful, just before the surface.
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.
Did you notice the smiley face in the center of the large impact crater?
@Tom I was going to post the same. I did notice it & seems a bit creepy to me with those sewn lips…