A visit to Cydonia on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The Cydonia region on Mars, located at around 30-40 degrees north latitude in the northern lowland plains just beyond the transition zone up to the southern cratered highlands, is well known to many on Earth because it was here that the Viking-1 orbiter took a picture of a mesa that, because of the sun angle, made its shadows resemble a face. Thus was born the “Face on Mars” that consumed the shallow-minded among us — and thus the culture, media, and Hollywood — absurdly for decades, until Mars Global Surveyor took the first high resolution image and proved without doubt what was really obvious from the beginning, that it was nothing more than a mesa.
Cydonia however remains a very intriguing region of Mars, mostly because it is home to a lot of strange geology, as shown by the photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here. Taken on January 16, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), it shows some of that strange and inexplicable geology.
While Cydonia is inside that 30-60 degree latitude band where MRO has imaged numerous glacial-type features, I do not know if many such features have been found there. Except for the pits and depressions in the photo’s lower right — which suggest decay in an ice sheet — little else at first glance in the picture clearly invokes any of the obvious glacial features one comes to expect. There appear to be what might be lobate flows in the image’s center going from the west to the east, but if they are glacial, they are so decayed to as leave much doubt.
The overview image below shows where Cydonia is on Mars, and helps explain partly what is found here.
The white cross marks the location of today’s photo. The black dot indicates the location of the “face” mesa.
Cydonia sits mostly in the northern lowlands. Though the region has many knobs and mesas that resemble the chaos terrain like the glacier country in Deuteronilus Mensae to the east, much of its chaos appears to be in its final stages of erosion, so that it is more a plain of small knobs and mesas than a region of cross-cutting canyons with large mesas in-between. Thus if there is buried ice here, rather than finding it in glaciers flowing off mesas it is more probably locked in underground ice sheets, as suggested in the lower right of today’s cool image.
In fact, the wider view provided by MRO’s context camera of this same place, rotated, cropped and reduced and posted below, makes its ice-filled geology more evident, though still far from certain. The craters in the wide view seem filled with some debris, and in numerous spots across the entire terrain there appear what to my eye look like corroding glaciers.
This is all a guess on my part, based on what I now know of Mars’ geology and how driven it appears to be by latitude. The white box below marks the location of the close-up image above.
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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.
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! The Cydonia region on Mars, located at around 30-40 degrees north latitude in the northern lowland plains just beyond the transition zone up to the southern cratered highlands, is well known to many on Earth because it was here that the Viking-1 orbiter took a picture of a mesa that, because of the sun angle, made its shadows resemble a face. Thus was born the “Face on Mars” that consumed the shallow-minded among us — and thus the culture, media, and Hollywood — absurdly for decades, until Mars Global Surveyor took the first high resolution image and proved without doubt what was really obvious from the beginning, that it was nothing more than a mesa.
Cydonia however remains a very intriguing region of Mars, mostly because it is home to a lot of strange geology, as shown by the photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here. Taken on January 16, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), it shows some of that strange and inexplicable geology.
While Cydonia is inside that 30-60 degree latitude band where MRO has imaged numerous glacial-type features, I do not know if many such features have been found there. Except for the pits and depressions in the photo’s lower right — which suggest decay in an ice sheet — little else at first glance in the picture clearly invokes any of the obvious glacial features one comes to expect. There appear to be what might be lobate flows in the image’s center going from the west to the east, but if they are glacial, they are so decayed to as leave much doubt.
The overview image below shows where Cydonia is on Mars, and helps explain partly what is found here.
The white cross marks the location of today’s photo. The black dot indicates the location of the “face” mesa.
Cydonia sits mostly in the northern lowlands. Though the region has many knobs and mesas that resemble the chaos terrain like the glacier country in Deuteronilus Mensae to the east, much of its chaos appears to be in its final stages of erosion, so that it is more a plain of small knobs and mesas than a region of cross-cutting canyons with large mesas in-between. Thus if there is buried ice here, rather than finding it in glaciers flowing off mesas it is more probably locked in underground ice sheets, as suggested in the lower right of today’s cool image.
In fact, the wider view provided by MRO’s context camera of this same place, rotated, cropped and reduced and posted below, makes its ice-filled geology more evident, though still far from certain. The craters in the wide view seem filled with some debris, and in numerous spots across the entire terrain there appear what to my eye look like corroding glaciers.
This is all a guess on my part, based on what I now know of Mars’ geology and how driven it appears to be by latitude. The white box below marks the location of the close-up image above.
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.
Perhaps lower gravity shapes erosion differently. The “face” wasn’t as interesting to me as a nearby feature that resembled the state of Alabama-minus Mobile.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve never listened to the Space Show live, always via Podcast. But I may try to stay up for this one!
No telling what atmosphere Mars once had too. Any guesses on atmosphere compositions and effects?
Hi, I can’t find the face or any of the often mentioned features.
Could you circle the face area so I can find it?
Ed: It is your kind of comment that makes me grumpy. If you would read my article, you would see that I provided links to articles with images of the “face” mesa. You would also discover that the map I provided provides the location, well to the west of the subject image.
As I say, you need to read things to get your questions answered. I am continually surprised how many people no longer know how to do this.
The “Face” never spooked me like Miranda-which all but looked strip-mined