Frozen waves of Martian lava?
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 17, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The science team labeled this a terrain sample image, which implies it was taken not as part of any specific request, but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule in order to maintain its proper temperature.
What are we looking at? This stippled terrain with curved ridges actually extends quite a distance beyond this image. A MRO context camera picture taken on July 22, 2020 shows its full extent, about 10 miles wide but extending to the north and south about 30 miles total, butting up against a north-south mountain chain to its east that is about seventy miles long with its highest peak about 8,000 feet above this plain.
The white dot southwest of the giant volcano Arsia Mons on the overview map to the right marks this location, on the outside edge of the vast flood lava plains laid down by Mars’ giant volcanoes. Therefore it is very reasonable that this stippled terrain is hardened flood lava.
As for the many small random ridges as well as the long curved ridges, my wild guess is that we are looking at frozen lava waves. On Mars lava is less viscous than on Earth, and flows more like water. Before this lava hardened it appears its surface was literally like a rough ocean of waves, with the two long curves two larger waves flowing towards the mountain shoreline to the east. When the lava hardened the shape of all these waves was retained.
You can definitely get an understanding of why I have come to this conclusion by looking at the context camera picture. Scan up and down that lava shoreline. You can see many such curved ridges, as if a series of big waves (the kind that surfers lust after) suddenly froze in place as they flowed toward the mountain chain.
Of course, I am making a very wild guess. The features here could be formed by many other processes, including ones having nothing to do with freezing lava. I just like it because it appeals to my artistic nature.
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:
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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 March 17, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The science team labeled this a terrain sample image, which implies it was taken not as part of any specific request, but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule in order to maintain its proper temperature.
What are we looking at? This stippled terrain with curved ridges actually extends quite a distance beyond this image. A MRO context camera picture taken on July 22, 2020 shows its full extent, about 10 miles wide but extending to the north and south about 30 miles total, butting up against a north-south mountain chain to its east that is about seventy miles long with its highest peak about 8,000 feet above this plain.
The white dot southwest of the giant volcano Arsia Mons on the overview map to the right marks this location, on the outside edge of the vast flood lava plains laid down by Mars’ giant volcanoes. Therefore it is very reasonable that this stippled terrain is hardened flood lava.
As for the many small random ridges as well as the long curved ridges, my wild guess is that we are looking at frozen lava waves. On Mars lava is less viscous than on Earth, and flows more like water. Before this lava hardened it appears its surface was literally like a rough ocean of waves, with the two long curves two larger waves flowing towards the mountain shoreline to the east. When the lava hardened the shape of all these waves was retained.
You can definitely get an understanding of why I have come to this conclusion by looking at the context camera picture. Scan up and down that lava shoreline. You can see many such curved ridges, as if a series of big waves (the kind that surfers lust after) suddenly froze in place as they flowed toward the mountain chain.
Of course, I am making a very wild guess. The features here could be formed by many other processes, including ones having nothing to do with freezing lava. I just like it because it appeals to my artistic nature.
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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