Drainage channel between two Martian hollows
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 28, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Dubbed a “terrain sample” by the camera team, it was likely taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule so as to maintain that camera’s proper temperature. When they have to do this, they try to pick interesting targets, though there is no guarantee the result will be very interesting.
In this case the camera snapped what appears to be a drainage channel between two deeper hollows. The channel sits about 100 feet above the western hollow and 260 feet above the eastern hollow. This makes some sense, as the overall drainage in this region is going from the west to the east, and then to the north.
The white dot in the inset on the overview map marks the location. This region of Mars is somewhat baffling in its geology, as it has many features that demand catastrophic floods, on a planet where no reasonable model has yet explained the possibility of liquid flowing water ever existing.
Note also the drainage channel from Aram Chaos to the east into Ares Vallis. Whatever floods occurred here tended to go from the west to the east, creating these connecting channels.
That the channel in the picture above sits 100 feet higher than the western hollow suggests that this hollow was once filled with water, either as liquid or ice, and the drainage was the overflow. As this is near the equator no near surface ice presently exists. We are looking at the visible evidence of geological events in the far past.
And though I am no geologist, I still can’t help wondering if glacial activity might have created the Martian geology that we Earthlings, from a planet covered 70% by liquid water, think was formed by flowing water. The fact that orbital images in the past decade have shown glacial and ice features everyone on Mars above 30 degrees latitude strengthens my feeling that this hypothesis might carry weight.
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 original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 28, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Dubbed a “terrain sample” by the camera team, it was likely taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule so as to maintain that camera’s proper temperature. When they have to do this, they try to pick interesting targets, though there is no guarantee the result will be very interesting.
In this case the camera snapped what appears to be a drainage channel between two deeper hollows. The channel sits about 100 feet above the western hollow and 260 feet above the eastern hollow. This makes some sense, as the overall drainage in this region is going from the west to the east, and then to the north.
The white dot in the inset on the overview map marks the location. This region of Mars is somewhat baffling in its geology, as it has many features that demand catastrophic floods, on a planet where no reasonable model has yet explained the possibility of liquid flowing water ever existing.
Note also the drainage channel from Aram Chaos to the east into Ares Vallis. Whatever floods occurred here tended to go from the west to the east, creating these connecting channels.
That the channel in the picture above sits 100 feet higher than the western hollow suggests that this hollow was once filled with water, either as liquid or ice, and the drainage was the overflow. As this is near the equator no near surface ice presently exists. We are looking at the visible evidence of geological events in the far past.
And though I am no geologist, I still can’t help wondering if glacial activity might have created the Martian geology that we Earthlings, from a planet covered 70% by liquid water, think was formed by flowing water. The fact that orbital images in the past decade have shown glacial and ice features everyone on Mars above 30 degrees latitude strengthens my feeling that this hypothesis might carry weight.
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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