Glacial eddies on Mars?
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on August 15, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a truly strange bunch of blocks beside a clean flow neatly organized in almost straight parallel lines.
What is going on? This location is at 38 degrees south latitude, a latitude where scientists have found a lot of features that resemble water ice glaciers, generally protected from sublimating away by a thin layer of dust and debris.
A first guess is that the smooth glacial flow at the lower right is disturbing the glacial material next to it, causing it to rip apart and break up. At the same time, the hollowed look of these glacial blocks suggests that the ice below that protective debris layer is also slowly sublimating away, causing the surface to sink.
The wider shot below helps confirm this impression.
Click for full image.
The white box indicates the area covered in the close-up above. I have added arrows to indicate the flow direction. From this image it appears that the flow that so much resembles many glaciers we see on Earth is disturbing the material on its northern edge, breaking it up into blocks almost like the whirling eddies you see along the shorelines of rivers and streams, generally caused by underwater rocks, boulders, logs, and other impediments to the stream’s smooth flow.
This image is located between two major meandering canyons draining into Hellas Basin — Harmakhis Valles and Reull Valles — as indicated by the red cross in the overview map to the right. I have posted a number of other images from this area, all of which suggest extensive glaciers flowing into these two valleys. The black boxes indicate two, as follows:
- 1. A massive Martian glacier that looks just like a glacier on Earth
- 2. Strange glacial flow features on Mars?
Today’s image only reinforces the impression given by the earlier photos. There is a lot of buried ice in the mountains and valleys to the east of Hellas Basin, and that ice over eons has flowed into the basin, carving out the meandering canyons we see today.
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
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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 full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on August 15, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a truly strange bunch of blocks beside a clean flow neatly organized in almost straight parallel lines.
What is going on? This location is at 38 degrees south latitude, a latitude where scientists have found a lot of features that resemble water ice glaciers, generally protected from sublimating away by a thin layer of dust and debris.
A first guess is that the smooth glacial flow at the lower right is disturbing the glacial material next to it, causing it to rip apart and break up. At the same time, the hollowed look of these glacial blocks suggests that the ice below that protective debris layer is also slowly sublimating away, causing the surface to sink.
The wider shot below helps confirm this impression.
Click for full image.
The white box indicates the area covered in the close-up above. I have added arrows to indicate the flow direction. From this image it appears that the flow that so much resembles many glaciers we see on Earth is disturbing the material on its northern edge, breaking it up into blocks almost like the whirling eddies you see along the shorelines of rivers and streams, generally caused by underwater rocks, boulders, logs, and other impediments to the stream’s smooth flow.
This image is located between two major meandering canyons draining into Hellas Basin — Harmakhis Valles and Reull Valles — as indicated by the red cross in the overview map to the right. I have posted a number of other images from this area, all of which suggest extensive glaciers flowing into these two valleys. The black boxes indicate two, as follows:
- 1. A massive Martian glacier that looks just like a glacier on Earth
- 2. Strange glacial flow features on Mars?
Today’s image only reinforces the impression given by the earlier photos. There is a lot of buried ice in the mountains and valleys to the east of Hellas Basin, and that ice over eons has flowed into the basin, carving out the meandering canyons we see today.
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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