Another “What the heck?” photo from Mars
Click for full image.
The cool image to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken a decade ago, on August 25, 2011, by the context camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), It shows a flat plain with a sudden clump of mounds or hills at the center.
This is one of those pictures from Mars which I like to call a “What the heck?” image. What caused the mounds, and why are they found only in this concentrated clump, with the rest of the terrain around them generally flat?
Though the context image was taken a decade ago, no follow-up high resolution images were taken of this area until very recently.
Below is the one recent high resolution image taken by MRO on May 12, 2021, cropped and reduced to show the bottom half of the mound clump as shown by the white box. It makes the mystery even more puzzling.
For example, note that there are a lot of craters on the mound clump. Though I haven’t done a proper crater count, it appears at first glance that the rate of impacts on the clump is somewhat comparable to the rate of impacts on the surrounding plains. This suggests that if the clump is showing us the peaks of mountains that a flood lava mostly buried, both are very very old.
The age of this feature is reinforced by its look. The edge of the clump does not look like the edge of a lava flow, as seen seen elsewhere on Mars. The ground, while smooth, does not show a distinct “sea level” that abruptly ends at the mounds. Instead, it continues right up to and even into the clump, transitioning seamlessly onto the mounds. Either the surrounding plains are not flood lava, or the flood happened so long ago that erosion has smoothed everything out. The rounded look of the mounds adds weight to this theory.
The location, as shown by the white dot in the overview map to the right, doesn’t help either. This clump is just on the border between the northern lowland plains and the transition zone up to the cratered highlands. It is also very near Isidis Basin, one of the largest basins on Mars and believed created by an impact 4 billion years ago. That impact left behind many lava flood and impact melt features, but is this clump one of them?
That the clump is on the margin of both the lowland plains and the transition zone means that the processes that formed either could have also formed it. That it is located at 25 degrees north latitude means that if ice had ever been involved it was a long time ago, when the rotational tilt of Mars was different than it is now.
The location is about 800 miles northeast of Perseverance, and about 2,000 miles west of China’s Zhurong rover (which is just east off the edge of this overview map). In fact, the clump sits at almost the same latitude as Zhurong. If that rover finds evidence of an underground ice layer there, than it will suggest such a thing might exist here, and help explain this strange clump of hills.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. 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
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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 full image.
The cool image to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken a decade ago, on August 25, 2011, by the context camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), It shows a flat plain with a sudden clump of mounds or hills at the center.
This is one of those pictures from Mars which I like to call a “What the heck?” image. What caused the mounds, and why are they found only in this concentrated clump, with the rest of the terrain around them generally flat?
Though the context image was taken a decade ago, no follow-up high resolution images were taken of this area until very recently.
Below is the one recent high resolution image taken by MRO on May 12, 2021, cropped and reduced to show the bottom half of the mound clump as shown by the white box. It makes the mystery even more puzzling.
For example, note that there are a lot of craters on the mound clump. Though I haven’t done a proper crater count, it appears at first glance that the rate of impacts on the clump is somewhat comparable to the rate of impacts on the surrounding plains. This suggests that if the clump is showing us the peaks of mountains that a flood lava mostly buried, both are very very old.
The age of this feature is reinforced by its look. The edge of the clump does not look like the edge of a lava flow, as seen seen elsewhere on Mars. The ground, while smooth, does not show a distinct “sea level” that abruptly ends at the mounds. Instead, it continues right up to and even into the clump, transitioning seamlessly onto the mounds. Either the surrounding plains are not flood lava, or the flood happened so long ago that erosion has smoothed everything out. The rounded look of the mounds adds weight to this theory.
The location, as shown by the white dot in the overview map to the right, doesn’t help either. This clump is just on the border between the northern lowland plains and the transition zone up to the cratered highlands. It is also very near Isidis Basin, one of the largest basins on Mars and believed created by an impact 4 billion years ago. That impact left behind many lava flood and impact melt features, but is this clump one of them?
That the clump is on the margin of both the lowland plains and the transition zone means that the processes that formed either could have also formed it. That it is located at 25 degrees north latitude means that if ice had ever been involved it was a long time ago, when the rotational tilt of Mars was different than it is now.
The location is about 800 miles northeast of Perseverance, and about 2,000 miles west of China’s Zhurong rover (which is just east off the edge of this overview map). In fact, the clump sits at almost the same latitude as Zhurong. If that rover finds evidence of an underground ice layer there, than it will suggest such a thing might exist here, and help explain this strange clump of hills.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. 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.
I have heard of “Chariots of the Gods”, but “Drywall of the Gods”? Also kind of looks like a peanut.
Seriously, looks about 5 to 7km wide and 30km long. Any heights on the hills? Ceratinly not moraine. I thought at first it was a lava flow. Probably just an eroded mountain.
I found the feature south of the formation more interesting: a crater and two depressions. Perhaps you have covered this, Robert? Would appreciate the link, if so.
Blair K Ivey: Nope, I haven’t covered these features, as this is a very recent image, and there have been no other high resolution images by MRO taken of this area before this.
And yes, that crater and those two depressions are equally puzzling.
This is where you really need a stereopair . . .