Inexplicable high latitude Martian terrain
Strange image time! The image on the right, reduced in resolution to post here, comes from the August 1, 2018 image release from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). (If you click on the image you can see the full resolution version.) I have not cropped this image at all, so that you can see all of its swirling terrain.
This image did not come with a caption. The image site merely describes this terrain as having an “interesting morphology.” The location, in the very high southern latitudes (78 degrees south) just outside the southern rim of a very large crater, provides a slight explanation, as the growth and retreat of the Martian carbon dioxide polar caps is known to create very strange landforms. These swirling flows are obviously an example of one such landform.
The crater rim is just off of the top of the image and parallel with it. Therefore, the apparent erosional flows going around the hills and mesas are running parallel to the rim, not down from it. The black specks scattered about are probably points where dust was released as the carbon dioxide turned from ice to gas, a process that at the high latitudes on Mars often causes what planetary scientists call “spiders.”
I will not even try to make a guess at the process that formed what we see here. The image itself was taken on June 16, 2018 as part of a seasonal monitoring effort, which means scientists expect there to be changes occurring here from year to year as the polar cap shrinks and grown. An almost identical image had been taken two years ago, on December 18, 2016, and shows almost no black specks, probably because of the different time in the Martian year. A much closer comparison of both high resolution images would be necessary to tease out any more subtle changes.
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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.
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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Strange image time! The image on the right, reduced in resolution to post here, comes from the August 1, 2018 image release from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). (If you click on the image you can see the full resolution version.) I have not cropped this image at all, so that you can see all of its swirling terrain.
This image did not come with a caption. The image site merely describes this terrain as having an “interesting morphology.” The location, in the very high southern latitudes (78 degrees south) just outside the southern rim of a very large crater, provides a slight explanation, as the growth and retreat of the Martian carbon dioxide polar caps is known to create very strange landforms. These swirling flows are obviously an example of one such landform.
The crater rim is just off of the top of the image and parallel with it. Therefore, the apparent erosional flows going around the hills and mesas are running parallel to the rim, not down from it. The black specks scattered about are probably points where dust was released as the carbon dioxide turned from ice to gas, a process that at the high latitudes on Mars often causes what planetary scientists call “spiders.”
I will not even try to make a guess at the process that formed what we see here. The image itself was taken on June 16, 2018 as part of a seasonal monitoring effort, which means scientists expect there to be changes occurring here from year to year as the polar cap shrinks and grown. An almost identical image had been taken two years ago, on December 18, 2016, and shows almost no black specks, probably because of the different time in the Martian year. A much closer comparison of both high resolution images would be necessary to tease out any more subtle changes.
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.
Don’t show this to Hoagland.
Look a little like mima mounds.
“-Going parallel to the rim”
It’s like a headache one wishes disappears when one wakes up tomorrow. Begone beast.
Mother Nature is always the queen of weird design.