Glacial evidence in the dry equatorial regions of Mars?
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, rotated, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 3, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the eastern half of a six-mile-wide unnamed crater with a depth of about 1,500 to 2,000 feet from rim to floor.
What makes this picture significant is the patchy material in the center of that crater floor, some of which looks almost like very old peeling paint. It also resembles the kind of glacial features routinely seen in many craters poleward of 30 degrees latitude on Mars.
Is this another example of such glacial features? If so, its location is what makes it significant.
The red dot on the overview map to the right, just outside the northeast rim of 107-mile-wide very ancient and eroded Flammarion Crater, marks the location of this smaller crater. Flammarion has geological features that suggest to some scientists that a lake once existed there.
More significant is the latitude, 26.5 degrees north. If that patchy material in the floor of the crater above is eroding ice, then this is one of the closest locations to the equator where such near-surface ice has been found. If this is ice, then it might be worthwhile to monitor the crater floor to see if there are any changes over time. This close to the equator any recently exposed ice will sublimate away relatively quickly.
Unfortunately, only one previous MRO hi-res image has been taken, of the western half of this crater in August 2012. There is only a little overlap, which makes detecting any changes in the subsequent decade difficult.
It is also possible we are looking at some form of impact melt, created when the crater formed and only recently exposed. I am not enthused by this possibility, but it cannot be dismissed.
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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.
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, rotated, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 3, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the eastern half of a six-mile-wide unnamed crater with a depth of about 1,500 to 2,000 feet from rim to floor.
What makes this picture significant is the patchy material in the center of that crater floor, some of which looks almost like very old peeling paint. It also resembles the kind of glacial features routinely seen in many craters poleward of 30 degrees latitude on Mars.
Is this another example of such glacial features? If so, its location is what makes it significant.
The red dot on the overview map to the right, just outside the northeast rim of 107-mile-wide very ancient and eroded Flammarion Crater, marks the location of this smaller crater. Flammarion has geological features that suggest to some scientists that a lake once existed there.
More significant is the latitude, 26.5 degrees north. If that patchy material in the floor of the crater above is eroding ice, then this is one of the closest locations to the equator where such near-surface ice has been found. If this is ice, then it might be worthwhile to monitor the crater floor to see if there are any changes over time. This close to the equator any recently exposed ice will sublimate away relatively quickly.
Unfortunately, only one previous MRO hi-res image has been taken, of the western half of this crater in August 2012. There is only a little overlap, which makes detecting any changes in the subsequent decade difficult.
It is also possible we are looking at some form of impact melt, created when the crater formed and only recently exposed. I am not enthused by this possibility, but it cannot be dismissed.
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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