Another “What the heck?!” image on Mars
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 2, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The scientists label this “Monitoring Irregular Terrains in Western Arabia Terra.” I label it more bluntly as another one of MRO’s “What the heck?!” images. For all I know, this is nothing more than a discarded Vincent Van Gogh painting, thrown out because even he couldn’t figure out what he was painting.
The best guess I can make, just from the picture alone, is that some of the dark spots are vents from which the white stuff vented at some point, either as small lava or mud volcanoes. As the location is close to the equator, near surface ice is almost certainly not a factor in what we see.
In any case there is no way to reasonably decipher this picture, just by looking at the picture. It is necessary to take a wider view.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, on the southeastern edge of Arabia Terra, Mars’ largest transition zone between the northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands.
The rectangle in the inset indicates the area covered by the picture above. This strange landscape appears to be inside a faint 13-mile-wide crater, except that this is not an impact crater. No raised rim of ejecta, and the low point, about 1,000 feet down, is offset from the center, as I have indicated in the inset.
My best guess is that this crater is actually a volcanic vent or small caldera, with the most recent area of venting the area of this weird landscape. Though it is likely that there has been no activity here for eons, the scientists are now monitoring this site for changes over time. The first MRO high resolution image was taken one year ago, with this more recent image a follow-up. No obvious changes are noticeable based on my quick cursory comparison, but that can’t be trusted, especially since the resolution of the jpgs available on the web is not the highest taken by MRO.
The details in the inset also suggest that the prevailing winds are blowing from the east to the west, and could also have played a factor in painting this landscape.
Maybe Van Gogh did have something to do with it, in spirit.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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
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P.O.Box 1262
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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, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 2, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The scientists label this “Monitoring Irregular Terrains in Western Arabia Terra.” I label it more bluntly as another one of MRO’s “What the heck?!” images. For all I know, this is nothing more than a discarded Vincent Van Gogh painting, thrown out because even he couldn’t figure out what he was painting.
The best guess I can make, just from the picture alone, is that some of the dark spots are vents from which the white stuff vented at some point, either as small lava or mud volcanoes. As the location is close to the equator, near surface ice is almost certainly not a factor in what we see.
In any case there is no way to reasonably decipher this picture, just by looking at the picture. It is necessary to take a wider view.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, on the southeastern edge of Arabia Terra, Mars’ largest transition zone between the northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands.
The rectangle in the inset indicates the area covered by the picture above. This strange landscape appears to be inside a faint 13-mile-wide crater, except that this is not an impact crater. No raised rim of ejecta, and the low point, about 1,000 feet down, is offset from the center, as I have indicated in the inset.
My best guess is that this crater is actually a volcanic vent or small caldera, with the most recent area of venting the area of this weird landscape. Though it is likely that there has been no activity here for eons, the scientists are now monitoring this site for changes over time. The first MRO high resolution image was taken one year ago, with this more recent image a follow-up. No obvious changes are noticeable based on my quick cursory comparison, but that can’t be trusted, especially since the resolution of the jpgs available on the web is not the highest taken by MRO.
The details in the inset also suggest that the prevailing winds are blowing from the east to the west, and could also have played a factor in painting this landscape.
Maybe Van Gogh did have something to do with it, in spirit.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
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