Martian eroding ridges amid brain terrain
Click for full image.
Today’s very cool image is cool because of how inexplicable it is. To the right, cropped to post here, is a photo taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of an area of what they call “Ribbed Terrain and Brain Terrain”.
I call it baffling.
Nor am I alone. At the moment the processes that create brain terrain (the undulations between the ridges) remain a complete mystery. There are theories, all relating to ice sublimating into gas, but none really explains the overall look of this terrain.
Making this geology even more baffling are the larger ridges surrounding the brain terrain, all of which appear to have depressions along their crests. Here too some form of sublimation process appears involved, but the details remain somewhat mysterious.
This image, as indicated by the red box in the overview map to the left, is located in the northern mid-latitudes, in a region of chaos terrain dubbed Deuteronilus Mensae that also sits in the transition zone between the northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands. The random mesas, buttes, and canyons of chaos terrain is evident.
Here in this transition zone planetary scientists have found lots of evidence of buried glaciers and ice, all near the surface. (See also these recent cool images — here and here — that add weight to this conclusion.)
Here also planetary scientists have consistently found some of the strangest Martian terrain. It appears the geology here is providing us a reminder of the true alienness of Mars, warning us that many other features on the red planet that seem familiar might in truth be very deceiving, and that their origins might not be what we assume. Over eons the ebb and flow of Mars’ water ice to and from its poles and its mid-latitudes has caused major geological reshaping of the surface, in ways that simply do not occur on Earth.
It is going to take a lot of research over decades to untangle this alien Martian geology.l. We have only just begun.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for full image.
Today’s very cool image is cool because of how inexplicable it is. To the right, cropped to post here, is a photo taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of an area of what they call “Ribbed Terrain and Brain Terrain”.
I call it baffling.
Nor am I alone. At the moment the processes that create brain terrain (the undulations between the ridges) remain a complete mystery. There are theories, all relating to ice sublimating into gas, but none really explains the overall look of this terrain.
Making this geology even more baffling are the larger ridges surrounding the brain terrain, all of which appear to have depressions along their crests. Here too some form of sublimation process appears involved, but the details remain somewhat mysterious.
This image, as indicated by the red box in the overview map to the left, is located in the northern mid-latitudes, in a region of chaos terrain dubbed Deuteronilus Mensae that also sits in the transition zone between the northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands. The random mesas, buttes, and canyons of chaos terrain is evident.
Here in this transition zone planetary scientists have found lots of evidence of buried glaciers and ice, all near the surface. (See also these recent cool images — here and here — that add weight to this conclusion.)
Here also planetary scientists have consistently found some of the strangest Martian terrain. It appears the geology here is providing us a reminder of the true alienness of Mars, warning us that many other features on the red planet that seem familiar might in truth be very deceiving, and that their origins might not be what we assume. Over eons the ebb and flow of Mars’ water ice to and from its poles and its mid-latitudes has caused major geological reshaping of the surface, in ways that simply do not occur on Earth.
It is going to take a lot of research over decades to untangle this alien Martian geology.l. We have only just begun.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
So how soon can we leave all the Democrats up there and not go back for them