Barren Mars
Click for full resolution panorama. For original images, go here, here, and here.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! The panorama above was created by me using three pictures taken today (here, here, and here) by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Perseverance. The top of the rover can be seen to the right, as well as its tracks.
The overview map to the right provides the context. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present position. The white dotted line its past travel route, with the red dotted line indicating the planned route. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the panorama.
Though the planned route had the rover head west and then south, the rover team instead had the rover retreat eastward about 450 feet the past few days, where it sits now. At the previous western location the team had attempted to find a location to drill a sample core, but apparently the ground was not satisfactory. By retreating to this previous location it could be they think they will have better luck.
What strikes me about this hilly terrain just outside Jezero Crater is its barrenness. You would have great difficulty anywhere on Earth finding terrain so empty of life. On Mars however there is nothing but dirt and rocks, for as far as the eye can see.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for full resolution panorama. For original images, go here, here, and here.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! The panorama above was created by me using three pictures taken today (here, here, and here) by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Perseverance. The top of the rover can be seen to the right, as well as its tracks.
The overview map to the right provides the context. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present position. The white dotted line its past travel route, with the red dotted line indicating the planned route. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the panorama.
Though the planned route had the rover head west and then south, the rover team instead had the rover retreat eastward about 450 feet the past few days, where it sits now. At the previous western location the team had attempted to find a location to drill a sample core, but apparently the ground was not satisfactory. By retreating to this previous location it could be they think they will have better luck.
What strikes me about this hilly terrain just outside Jezero Crater is its barrenness. You would have great difficulty anywhere on Earth finding terrain so empty of life. On Mars however there is nothing but dirt and rocks, for as far as the eye can see.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It’s funny since I just took a walk along the “beach” at the Buffalo Bill Reservoir this afternoon. The lake level is down something like 38 feet from full, and along the Bartlett Lane side there is an enormous amount of shoreline exposed. What’s normally under 30 or 35 feet of water is now open to the air, and it stretches for hundreds of yards out to the frozen surface of the water.
This “beach” ranges from soccer ball-sized rocks, through cobble-stone-sized, and then down to river-rock-sized, but also includes huge spans of shingle, where slabs of rock are exposed. Since these areas are normally underwater for almost all of the growing season, nothing grows here and it is completely barren.
If only it were reddish colored rather than brown it would greatly resemble most of the landscape shown in the pictures of the Martian surface. With -20°F temperatures and bone-dry humidity it might be a good place to initially field-test future rovers.
Blackwing1: We all know that if that beach was to stay exposed for several weeks you would begin to see some plant life growing there. On Mars that ground has been exposed for many many centuries, and it remained barren for that entire time.
Elton John was right. It appears that Mr. Musk may make it to Mars while still young enough to have children, so we may get to find out. The more I see of Mars, the less I want to go. Without a professional interest, not much reason to go. Robert says centuries, but much of the terrain age is measured in Mya, if not Gya. That’s bleak.
Blair Ivey: It is important to remember that the rovers and landers have all been sent to the dry equatorial regions, areas that are not great for settlement. No water.
This choice has partly been for engineering, to make landings less risky, but more and more it has been dictated by the choices of geologists, who really aren’t focused on finding ideal locations for colonies.
I strongly suspect the latitudes above 30 degrees will be less barren, at least in terms of water and ice. And give those colonies water and they can quickly make their colonies green.
“Nothing to do but throw rocks at tin cans, and you gotta bring your own tin cans!” From Forbidden Planet.
Personally, I’d be much happier living on a rotating station near Earth than on (or below) the surface of Mars. 20-year-old me would not have been so picky.
I’m not sure which is the more difficult challenge to build. Neither is in any way easy. I’m definitely a Luna-first person. If we (whoever “we” actually is) can’t build infrastructure on the moon, we have no chance on Mars.
On the grim/macabre side, it would be strange to look up at the moon and think, “those poor people who are entombed there forever” while most people never see Mars so it wouldn’t seem like an orbiting graveyard, even if it were. Of course, time would fix that. No one looks at the east coast of the US and ponders the fate of Jamestown.