Colorful Mars
Click for full image.
Today’s cool image illustrates that Mars is not merely the Red Planet, but actually does have places on its surface that are colorful and interesting. The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was today’s picture of the day for the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). As Alfred McEwen of the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory in Arizona notes in the caption:
This region of Mars has a diversity of minerals resulting in especially colorful images. However, the geology is complex and not easy to understand. Nili Fossae has often been on the list for potential landing sites for robotic exploration, and will likely continue to be so given its rich landscape.
When I asked McEwen what minerals are indicated by the different colors, he responded that at the scale provided by MRO, the reddish colors indicated dust or water-altered minerals like clays, and the blue/green colors indicated mafic minerals like pyroxene and olivine.
You can get a sense of the scale by looking at the wider image below. The overview map below that provides some interesting context, including a hint as to why Perseverance landed where it did.
Click for full image.
The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, was taken on January 17, 2022 by MRO’s high resolution camera. The white rectangle marks the area covered by the picture above. The colors are not exactly the same because the image to the right has not been processed as completely as the image above.
The terrain here is complex and somewhat baffling. The location, indicated by the black dot in the overview map, is just to the east of a large 30-mile-wide unnamed old and very eroded crater, and likely includes in the full image the rims of two even more obscure smaller craters to the north and south. Thus, much of what we see in this image is likely ejecta from those craters, reworked significantly in the eons since impact.
This colorful terrain, about 250 miles west of Jezero Crater where Perseverance and Ingenuity are roaming, shows us a small part of the reason why that crater was picked. This region, dubbed Nili Fossae, extends east to much closer to Jezero. In fact, I suspect, based on many MRO images I’ve looked at, that once Perseverance finishes exploring the delta that flowed into the crater and moves west through the gap in the crater rim up onto the cratered highlands beyond, it will be moving into similar geology as shown in this picture, geology that all evidence suggests is rich in useful minerals. As I noted in a post about Nili Fossae in March 2021:
… the wide variety of minerals already located in Nili Fossae marks this as a place that future settlers are going to want to visit very early in their explorations. Not only may it contain valuable materials needed by them, it is relatively close to the glacier country to the northwest, where there is a lot of very accessible ice.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Today’s cool image illustrates that Mars is not merely the Red Planet, but actually does have places on its surface that are colorful and interesting. The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was today’s picture of the day for the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). As Alfred McEwen of the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory in Arizona notes in the caption:
This region of Mars has a diversity of minerals resulting in especially colorful images. However, the geology is complex and not easy to understand. Nili Fossae has often been on the list for potential landing sites for robotic exploration, and will likely continue to be so given its rich landscape.
When I asked McEwen what minerals are indicated by the different colors, he responded that at the scale provided by MRO, the reddish colors indicated dust or water-altered minerals like clays, and the blue/green colors indicated mafic minerals like pyroxene and olivine.
You can get a sense of the scale by looking at the wider image below. The overview map below that provides some interesting context, including a hint as to why Perseverance landed where it did.
Click for full image.
The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, was taken on January 17, 2022 by MRO’s high resolution camera. The white rectangle marks the area covered by the picture above. The colors are not exactly the same because the image to the right has not been processed as completely as the image above.
The terrain here is complex and somewhat baffling. The location, indicated by the black dot in the overview map, is just to the east of a large 30-mile-wide unnamed old and very eroded crater, and likely includes in the full image the rims of two even more obscure smaller craters to the north and south. Thus, much of what we see in this image is likely ejecta from those craters, reworked significantly in the eons since impact.
This colorful terrain, about 250 miles west of Jezero Crater where Perseverance and Ingenuity are roaming, shows us a small part of the reason why that crater was picked. This region, dubbed Nili Fossae, extends east to much closer to Jezero. In fact, I suspect, based on many MRO images I’ve looked at, that once Perseverance finishes exploring the delta that flowed into the crater and moves west through the gap in the crater rim up onto the cratered highlands beyond, it will be moving into similar geology as shown in this picture, geology that all evidence suggests is rich in useful minerals. As I noted in a post about Nili Fossae in March 2021:
… the wide variety of minerals already located in Nili Fossae marks this as a place that future settlers are going to want to visit very early in their explorations. Not only may it contain valuable materials needed by them, it is relatively close to the glacier country to the northwest, where there is a lot of very accessible ice.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Readers: the rules for commenting!
No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.
However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.
Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.