Layered glaciers in Mars’ glacier country
Cool image time. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on August 30, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows two different impact craters in a glacial region dubbed Nilosyrtis Mensae, located in the northern mid-latitudes in the 2,000 mile long strip chaos terrain that I have labeled glacier country because practically every image finds them there.
The splash apron surrounding the larger crater is typical of craters in Martian regions where ice is thought to be near the surface.
What makes this picture interesting is that the glaciers appear layered. You can see evidence of this in the mounds inside both craters. Those mounds appear to represent earlier periods when there was more ice here. Since then the mounds have partly sublimated away.
You can also see evidence of layers in the material surrounding the nearby larger mounds.
The map below shows us where this image is, relative to all of glacier country as well as the rover Perseverance in Jezero Crater.
The white cross marks the location of this image, at 41 degrees north latitude. Perseverance is a bit more than a thousand miles to the southeast, at about 18 degrees north latitude.
At this location, practically every image screams glaciers and ice. At Perseverance, only 23 degrees of latitude further south, the ground is dry.
Maybe the most interesting feature in this photo is the smaller crater. The impact appears to have drilled into the icy mounds, leaving a crater with no upraised rim on the high mound side, and no rim at all on the low side. Most intriguing.
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Cool image time. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on August 30, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows two different impact craters in a glacial region dubbed Nilosyrtis Mensae, located in the northern mid-latitudes in the 2,000 mile long strip chaos terrain that I have labeled glacier country because practically every image finds them there.
The splash apron surrounding the larger crater is typical of craters in Martian regions where ice is thought to be near the surface.
What makes this picture interesting is that the glaciers appear layered. You can see evidence of this in the mounds inside both craters. Those mounds appear to represent earlier periods when there was more ice here. Since then the mounds have partly sublimated away.
You can also see evidence of layers in the material surrounding the nearby larger mounds.
The map below shows us where this image is, relative to all of glacier country as well as the rover Perseverance in Jezero Crater.
The white cross marks the location of this image, at 41 degrees north latitude. Perseverance is a bit more than a thousand miles to the southeast, at about 18 degrees north latitude.
At this location, practically every image screams glaciers and ice. At Perseverance, only 23 degrees of latitude further south, the ground is dry.
Maybe the most interesting feature in this photo is the smaller crater. The impact appears to have drilled into the icy mounds, leaving a crater with no upraised rim on the high mound side, and no rim at all on the low side. Most intriguing.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
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