Another tourist site for future Starship passengers on Mars
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 11, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the northwest quadrant of a 7-mile-wide crater whose western rim was smashed by the later impact that created a smaller 2.8-mile-wide crater.
What makes this location interesting is what fills both craters, and how that material appears to flow through a gap in the smaller crater. The color strip suggests the peaks of the rim and small knobs are dust-covered, while the flat materials below are either “coarser-grained materials” that might also have elements of frost or ice within them. The science team thinks ice is involved, having labeled this picture “Ice Flow Features between Craters.”
The white dot in the inset on the overview map to the right marks this location, about 450 to 750 miles west of three prime Starship candidate landing sites, and about 225 miles east of the fourth. Orbital data of this region consistently suggests that it has a lot of near-surface ice. This picture simply reinforces that previous data. The material that fills both craters is thick enough that it buries most of the smaller crater’s rim and even overflows one low point. Though visually the impression is that the flow is going from the east to the west, the grade goes downhill to the east, which means the flow traveled from the larger to the smaller crater.
Similarly, the splash aprons around this crater and one immediately to the east, as shown in the zoomed-in inset, suggest a soft icy surface that melted at impact but quickly hardened. The two equal-sized craters with a straight ridge between suggest that both occurred at the same time, and were part of an object that broke in half before it hit this icy Martian surface.
Though the range of elevation change inside these craters is small, about forty feet from the low to high points, with the highest point on the rim of the smaller crater only about 600 feet high, the views would still be alien and intriguing for those early Starship passengers. Though ice is likely accessibly here, they would not come here for it, since there are much closer sites near the prime landing sites where it would be just as easy to dig up.
They would come for the view.
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.
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 11, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the northwest quadrant of a 7-mile-wide crater whose western rim was smashed by the later impact that created a smaller 2.8-mile-wide crater.
What makes this location interesting is what fills both craters, and how that material appears to flow through a gap in the smaller crater. The color strip suggests the peaks of the rim and small knobs are dust-covered, while the flat materials below are either “coarser-grained materials” that might also have elements of frost or ice within them. The science team thinks ice is involved, having labeled this picture “Ice Flow Features between Craters.”
The white dot in the inset on the overview map to the right marks this location, about 450 to 750 miles west of three prime Starship candidate landing sites, and about 225 miles east of the fourth. Orbital data of this region consistently suggests that it has a lot of near-surface ice. This picture simply reinforces that previous data. The material that fills both craters is thick enough that it buries most of the smaller crater’s rim and even overflows one low point. Though visually the impression is that the flow is going from the east to the west, the grade goes downhill to the east, which means the flow traveled from the larger to the smaller crater.
Similarly, the splash aprons around this crater and one immediately to the east, as shown in the zoomed-in inset, suggest a soft icy surface that melted at impact but quickly hardened. The two equal-sized craters with a straight ridge between suggest that both occurred at the same time, and were part of an object that broke in half before it hit this icy Martian surface.
Though the range of elevation change inside these craters is small, about forty feet from the low to high points, with the highest point on the rim of the smaller crater only about 600 feet high, the views would still be alien and intriguing for those early Starship passengers. Though ice is likely accessibly here, they would not come here for it, since there are much closer sites near the prime landing sites where it would be just as easy to dig up.
They would come for the view.
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.
Come for the view, stay for the doughnuts!