Chaos in the southern cratered highlands of Mars
Click for full image.vi
Today’s cool image takes us to a part of the cratered southern highlands of Mars that I have not featured much previously. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on March 7, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be a collection of rough hills and mesas surrounded by a sea of smooth ground that at the base of the cliffs seems to end abruptly.
The smooth ground is probably mantled by a layer of dust and debris. Since this location is at 36 degrees south latitude, there is also probably near surface ice under that layer. The abrupt edges likely indicate where the increasing slope next to the mesas and mounds caused that ice to be exposed and thus sublimate away.
As for the location, we must go to the overview map.
The black dot inside the outlined region dubbed Ariadne Colles marks the location of these hills, deep within the southern cratered highlands east of Hellas Basin. Recently I focused on the southern cratered highlands, but west of Hellas Basin. Few cool images previously have highlighted cratered highlands to the east.
As described in this Mars Express image release, Ariadne Colles is a region of chaos terrain, though unlike chaos terrain found elsewhere on Mars here its mesas are significantly eroded, producing a wider scattering of mounds and hills.
This part of the southern cratered highlands appears to have several similar scattered patches of chaos terrain. See for example this September 2020 cool image showing a patch about 300 miles to the west. Like today’s mounds, those hills are also surrounded by eroded smooth terrain.
I suspect a look at more images in this part of the cratered highlands will reveal many similar features, and like almost everywhere on Mars in the mid-latitude bands from 30 to 60 degrees latitude there will be features suggesting glaciers.
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 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 image.vi
Today’s cool image takes us to a part of the cratered southern highlands of Mars that I have not featured much previously. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on March 7, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be a collection of rough hills and mesas surrounded by a sea of smooth ground that at the base of the cliffs seems to end abruptly.
The smooth ground is probably mantled by a layer of dust and debris. Since this location is at 36 degrees south latitude, there is also probably near surface ice under that layer. The abrupt edges likely indicate where the increasing slope next to the mesas and mounds caused that ice to be exposed and thus sublimate away.
As for the location, we must go to the overview map.
The black dot inside the outlined region dubbed Ariadne Colles marks the location of these hills, deep within the southern cratered highlands east of Hellas Basin. Recently I focused on the southern cratered highlands, but west of Hellas Basin. Few cool images previously have highlighted cratered highlands to the east.
As described in this Mars Express image release, Ariadne Colles is a region of chaos terrain, though unlike chaos terrain found elsewhere on Mars here its mesas are significantly eroded, producing a wider scattering of mounds and hills.
This part of the southern cratered highlands appears to have several similar scattered patches of chaos terrain. See for example this September 2020 cool image showing a patch about 300 miles to the west. Like today’s mounds, those hills are also surrounded by eroded smooth terrain.
I suspect a look at more images in this part of the cratered highlands will reveal many similar features, and like almost everywhere on Mars in the mid-latitude bands from 30 to 60 degrees latitude there will be features suggesting glaciers.
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 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
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