Endless dunes in the dry Martian equatorial region
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 14, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small section of a vast dune field, 50 miles square, that sits about 225 miles south of the southern foothills of Mars’ biggest volcano, Olympus Mons.
The dunes are probably less than 20 feet high, with that one small hill only slightly higher. Their similar orientation, which extends across the entire 50-mile-square dune field, indicates the direction of the prevailing winds, which I think (but will not swear to it) is from the southeast to the northwest, which also happens to also follow the grade downhill to the northwest.
It is also possible that wind direction is the reverse, and goes uphill to the southwest.
The white dot on the overview map to the right, south of Olympus Mons and on the very eastern edge of the vast Medusae Fossae Formation, marks the location. Medusae is the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars — covering several thousand miles along the equator — and is thought to be the source of most of the planet’s dust.
The ash itself likely came from the giant volcanoes that surround this part of Mars, in eruptions that ended more than a billion years ago. Over the eons that volcanic material has been ground into this vast field of dust, which over those same eons has been distributed across the entire red planet.
In this place however that dust merely covers everything for many miles, creating a dune field comparable in its own alien way to White Sands in New Mexico.
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, rotated, cropped, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 14, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small section of a vast dune field, 50 miles square, that sits about 225 miles south of the southern foothills of Mars’ biggest volcano, Olympus Mons.
The dunes are probably less than 20 feet high, with that one small hill only slightly higher. Their similar orientation, which extends across the entire 50-mile-square dune field, indicates the direction of the prevailing winds, which I think (but will not swear to it) is from the southeast to the northwest, which also happens to also follow the grade downhill to the northwest.
It is also possible that wind direction is the reverse, and goes uphill to the southwest.
The white dot on the overview map to the right, south of Olympus Mons and on the very eastern edge of the vast Medusae Fossae Formation, marks the location. Medusae is the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars — covering several thousand miles along the equator — and is thought to be the source of most of the planet’s dust.
The ash itself likely came from the giant volcanoes that surround this part of Mars, in eruptions that ended more than a billion years ago. Over the eons that volcanic material has been ground into this vast field of dust, which over those same eons has been distributed across the entire red planet.
In this place however that dust merely covers everything for many miles, creating a dune field comparable in its own alien way to White Sands in New Mexico.
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
I’ve seen walls plastered like that