Frozen lava in Mars’ volcano country
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on January 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be at first glance a relatively featureless plain with a lighter material covered by a patchwork of darker material.
Note however the lack of craters. Except for several faint depressions near the image’s center, there are none. And those depressions look like the expression of craters that have been covered by material. Is the two-toned surface here an expression of past lava flows? Or are we seeing an ice-sheeted plain, with the patches representing higher terrain above that plain?
The overview map below answers the question somewhat clearly.
The white dot in the Athabasca Valles flood lava marks this image’s location, only about 3.5 degrees north of the equator. The surface here is dry, no ice. If you look at the full image, you can see that the dark-toned material appears to be part of a northeast-to-southwest flow, which also matches the direction of flow for Athabasca, which originated from the northeast and spread outward in lava floods to the west and south.
Athabasca covers an area about the size of Great Britain and is thought to be one of the youngest such flood plains on Mars, from 1 to 20 million years ago. Scientists also believe [pdf] that the magma flooded this territory very quickly, covering this vast region in only a matter of weeks.
A search of Behind the Black for “Athabasca” will list many similar images of this frozen flood lava. And while all the images have similarities, all are also unique in their own way. They consistently however imply the speed in which this lava flowed.
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.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on January 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be at first glance a relatively featureless plain with a lighter material covered by a patchwork of darker material.
Note however the lack of craters. Except for several faint depressions near the image’s center, there are none. And those depressions look like the expression of craters that have been covered by material. Is the two-toned surface here an expression of past lava flows? Or are we seeing an ice-sheeted plain, with the patches representing higher terrain above that plain?
The overview map below answers the question somewhat clearly.
The white dot in the Athabasca Valles flood lava marks this image’s location, only about 3.5 degrees north of the equator. The surface here is dry, no ice. If you look at the full image, you can see that the dark-toned material appears to be part of a northeast-to-southwest flow, which also matches the direction of flow for Athabasca, which originated from the northeast and spread outward in lava floods to the west and south.
Athabasca covers an area about the size of Great Britain and is thought to be one of the youngest such flood plains on Mars, from 1 to 20 million years ago. Scientists also believe [pdf] that the magma flooded this territory very quickly, covering this vast region in only a matter of weeks.
A search of Behind the Black for “Athabasca” will list many similar images of this frozen flood lava. And while all the images have similarities, all are also unique in their own way. They consistently however imply the speed in which this lava flowed.
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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