Brain Terrain on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! This week the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) science team featured four new captioned images taken by the spacecraft and released as part of the March image dump. The first, dubbed “The Slow Charm of Brain Terrain,” deserves an immediate post on Behind the Black. To the right is only a small section cropped from the full image. From the caption:
You are staring at one of the unsolved mysteries on Mars. This surface texture of interconnected ridges and troughs, referred to as “brain terrain” is found throughout the mid-latitude regions of Mars. (This image is in Protonilus Mensae.)
This bizarrely textured terrain may be directly related to the water-ice that lies beneath the surface. One hypothesis is that when the buried water-ice sublimates (changes from a solid to a gas), it forms the troughs in the ice. The formation of these features might be an active process that is slowly occurring since HiRISE [MRO’s high resolution camera] has yet to detect significant changes in these terrains.
Below is a cropped section of the full image, rotated and reduced to post here.
I have indicated by the white box the section of the image they highlight. The smaller box is the area covered by the image posted by me above.
What immediately struck me in looking at the full image is the two flow features to the southeast of this brain terrain. The larger one in the middle of the image clearly looks like it is pushing its way into this brain terrain. The push was so hard that it formed a moraine in that terrain, which is the v-shaped ridge at the head of this flow.. Since MRO has not detected any changes in this terrain in its more than a decade of observations, this process either occurred quite awhile ago and has apparently since become frozen in place, or is occurring very very slowly, so slowly that in a decade we cannot see a change
If the former, the material here had the texture and malleability of mud when it occurred. If the latter, it more resembles glass, in that it is flowing like a liquid, but doing so slowly you can’t see it happen.
The caption above says this strange geological feature is found throughout the mid-latitude regions of Mars, but this is a very vague statement. I would be more interested in the specific geology where all of these features are found. For example, this particular location is in the transition zone between the southern highlands and the northern lowland plains, an area with many shoreline features scattered about. Is brain terrain always found in that transition zone, which is generally in the mid-latitudes? And if so, is its formation related in some way with those shoreline features and the theorized intermittent ocean that some scientists believe once existed in the Martian northern hemisphere?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Posted in the air between Columbus and Las Vegas, on the way home,.
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.
Click for full image.
Cool image time! This week the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) science team featured four new captioned images taken by the spacecraft and released as part of the March image dump. The first, dubbed “The Slow Charm of Brain Terrain,” deserves an immediate post on Behind the Black. To the right is only a small section cropped from the full image. From the caption:
You are staring at one of the unsolved mysteries on Mars. This surface texture of interconnected ridges and troughs, referred to as “brain terrain” is found throughout the mid-latitude regions of Mars. (This image is in Protonilus Mensae.)
This bizarrely textured terrain may be directly related to the water-ice that lies beneath the surface. One hypothesis is that when the buried water-ice sublimates (changes from a solid to a gas), it forms the troughs in the ice. The formation of these features might be an active process that is slowly occurring since HiRISE [MRO’s high resolution camera] has yet to detect significant changes in these terrains.
Below is a cropped section of the full image, rotated and reduced to post here.
I have indicated by the white box the section of the image they highlight. The smaller box is the area covered by the image posted by me above.
What immediately struck me in looking at the full image is the two flow features to the southeast of this brain terrain. The larger one in the middle of the image clearly looks like it is pushing its way into this brain terrain. The push was so hard that it formed a moraine in that terrain, which is the v-shaped ridge at the head of this flow.. Since MRO has not detected any changes in this terrain in its more than a decade of observations, this process either occurred quite awhile ago and has apparently since become frozen in place, or is occurring very very slowly, so slowly that in a decade we cannot see a change
If the former, the material here had the texture and malleability of mud when it occurred. If the latter, it more resembles glass, in that it is flowing like a liquid, but doing so slowly you can’t see it happen.
The caption above says this strange geological feature is found throughout the mid-latitude regions of Mars, but this is a very vague statement. I would be more interested in the specific geology where all of these features are found. For example, this particular location is in the transition zone between the southern highlands and the northern lowland plains, an area with many shoreline features scattered about. Is brain terrain always found in that transition zone, which is generally in the mid-latitudes? And if so, is its formation related in some way with those shoreline features and the theorized intermittent ocean that some scientists believe once existed in the Martian northern hemisphere?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Posted in the air between Columbus and Las Vegas, on the way home,.
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.
If someone was standing in a trough, how high would the peaks be above their head? Could you drive a vehicle in here? I think we need to try.