Frozen Martian eddies at the confluence of two glacier rivers
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 3, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The science team labels the photo as capturing a “contact near Reull Vallis,” a 1,000-mile-long Martian canyon that flows down the eastern slopes of Hellas Basin, the death valley of Mars.
What I see isn’t a geological contact but a complex jumble of odd-shaped depressions and mesas, surrounded by an eroded surface that seems squashed and deformed by some process. If this is all we had to go on, I would simply label this as another “What the heck?” image on Mars and move on. However, the larger context of the overview map helps explain it all, at least as best as we can explain using orbital data.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, located in the upper half of Reull Vallis and focused on a short but wide tributary that flows northward into the main east-to-west channel. The arrows show the glacial flow direction, and in the inset those arrows I think provide an explanation for the jumbled features in the picture above.
Reull Vallis is essentially a glacial river, flowing roughly downhill from the east to the west into Hellas Basin. At this location the channel widens on the south so that an eddy can form at the outlet point of this side tributary (as indicated by the arrows). That eddy however impinges on the southeast-to-northwest flow of the tributory. The result is that the tributory’s flow is disturbed, resulting in the jumble we see in the picture above.
None of these glaciers are likely active at this time, however, as can be seen by dark slope streaks flowing down the main channel’s north interior cliffs. If the glacier was flowing those streaks would likely be distorted. Instead, they go straight downhill.
This eddy however illustrates why glaciers might possibly explain the many riverlike channels on Mars, rather than flowing liquid water. Though glaciers work very slowly, on Mars they have endless time to do so, as the temperature is almost never above freezing. And since there appears to be plenty of surface or near-surface ice on the planet, especially above 30 degrees latitude, that ice has had the opportunity to do a lot of carving.
The eddy shows the glacier can act just like a river, though much slower. Given enough time and enough ice, there really is no reason that glacial ice can’t carve out channels similar to the channels that rivers carve.
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
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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 original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 3, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The science team labels the photo as capturing a “contact near Reull Vallis,” a 1,000-mile-long Martian canyon that flows down the eastern slopes of Hellas Basin, the death valley of Mars.
What I see isn’t a geological contact but a complex jumble of odd-shaped depressions and mesas, surrounded by an eroded surface that seems squashed and deformed by some process. If this is all we had to go on, I would simply label this as another “What the heck?” image on Mars and move on. However, the larger context of the overview map helps explain it all, at least as best as we can explain using orbital data.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, located in the upper half of Reull Vallis and focused on a short but wide tributary that flows northward into the main east-to-west channel. The arrows show the glacial flow direction, and in the inset those arrows I think provide an explanation for the jumbled features in the picture above.
Reull Vallis is essentially a glacial river, flowing roughly downhill from the east to the west into Hellas Basin. At this location the channel widens on the south so that an eddy can form at the outlet point of this side tributary (as indicated by the arrows). That eddy however impinges on the southeast-to-northwest flow of the tributory. The result is that the tributory’s flow is disturbed, resulting in the jumble we see in the picture above.
None of these glaciers are likely active at this time, however, as can be seen by dark slope streaks flowing down the main channel’s north interior cliffs. If the glacier was flowing those streaks would likely be distorted. Instead, they go straight downhill.
This eddy however illustrates why glaciers might possibly explain the many riverlike channels on Mars, rather than flowing liquid water. Though glaciers work very slowly, on Mars they have endless time to do so, as the temperature is almost never above freezing. And since there appears to be plenty of surface or near-surface ice on the planet, especially above 30 degrees latitude, that ice has had the opportunity to do a lot of carving.
The eddy shows the glacier can act just like a river, though much slower. Given enough time and enough ice, there really is no reason that glacial ice can’t carve out channels similar to the channels that rivers carve.
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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