Flow channels on Mars
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 13, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists call a “channel and depression”, though to my eye everything looks like flow channels, descending to the east.
The drop from the narrow northern channel to wider southern channel is about 200 feet, with the small crater on the left sitting about halfway between. To our Earthbound eyes, something clearly flowed downhill from that northern channel into the wider channel. What we don’t know now is what the material was that did the flowing?
Was it liquid water? Glaciers? The overview map below provides some context, though it doesn’t actually provide an answer.
The red dot north of Kasei Valles on the overflow map to the right marks this location. The black in Kasei Valles is an ancient lava flow thought to have followed the older channel. The blue area marks a hypothesized lake formed by an ice dam (the white line).
The channels in the picture above were formed in a region where there are many similar flow features, all descending to the east and draining into Chryse Planitia in the northern lowland plains of Mars. While the consensus theory says that these channels were likely formed by catastrophic floods of liquid water, that theory remains unproven with many caveats, the most important of which is that no scientist has yet come up with a convincing model that would have ever allowed liquid water to exist on the surface of Mars.
It is possible that ice, flowing as a glacier, could have produced these channels. This location however is puzzling, in that despite being at 37 degrees north latitude, where orbital images normally detect many glacial features, few such features are visible. The only suggestion that there is near surface ice here is that craters all appear to be rimless, suggesting impacts into soft ice-impregnated soil.
The mystery remains however. These channels could have been formed from liquid or frozen water, but we simply do not have enough data to say which.
Readers!
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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:
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 13, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists call a “channel and depression”, though to my eye everything looks like flow channels, descending to the east.
The drop from the narrow northern channel to wider southern channel is about 200 feet, with the small crater on the left sitting about halfway between. To our Earthbound eyes, something clearly flowed downhill from that northern channel into the wider channel. What we don’t know now is what the material was that did the flowing?
Was it liquid water? Glaciers? The overview map below provides some context, though it doesn’t actually provide an answer.
The red dot north of Kasei Valles on the overflow map to the right marks this location. The black in Kasei Valles is an ancient lava flow thought to have followed the older channel. The blue area marks a hypothesized lake formed by an ice dam (the white line).
The channels in the picture above were formed in a region where there are many similar flow features, all descending to the east and draining into Chryse Planitia in the northern lowland plains of Mars. While the consensus theory says that these channels were likely formed by catastrophic floods of liquid water, that theory remains unproven with many caveats, the most important of which is that no scientist has yet come up with a convincing model that would have ever allowed liquid water to exist on the surface of Mars.
It is possible that ice, flowing as a glacier, could have produced these channels. This location however is puzzling, in that despite being at 37 degrees north latitude, where orbital images normally detect many glacial features, few such features are visible. The only suggestion that there is near surface ice here is that craters all appear to be rimless, suggesting impacts into soft ice-impregnated soil.
The mystery remains however. These channels could have been formed from liquid or frozen water, but we simply do not have enough data to say which.
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.
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