Meandering channels on Mars
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 2, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The scientists describe this as “meandering channels,” which seems appropriate. The downhill grade here is to the southeast. In wider views these channels extend from the northwest to the southeast about 31 miles total (with this location near the center), with the total elevation loss about 3,000 feet.
Note the splash apron around the 4,500-foot-wide unnamed crater as well as how the largest channel seems to terminate suddenly at the crater. Though at first glance it appears this impact occurred after the channels, that some of the channels cut into that splash apron suggests otherwise.
The dot marked #1 on the overview map to the right marks the location, in the northwest quadrant of 185-mile-wide Newton Crater. This is the fourth cool image I have featured inside Newton, with the other three indicated by their own numbered dots:
- 2: August 17, 2022: Get above 30 degrees latitude on Mars and you can find ice everywhere
- 3: September 5, 2022: Gullies and glaciers in a crater on Mars
- 4: September 23, 2022: Above ground and underground Martian drainage
All four images suggest that the floor of Newton crater has a lot of near surface ice, causing these meandering channels sometime in the past as well as numerous other glacial features as well as erosion gullies. As this crater is at 39 degrees south latitude and directly inside the mid-latitude bands where many glacial features are found, this impression is reasonable.
In the case of today’s cool image, the stippled surface suggests that near-surface ice is sublimating away and causing the surface to roughen and erode. Whether the channels were formed by liquid water in the distance past or by glaciers more recently remains an unanswered question.
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.
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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 2, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The scientists describe this as “meandering channels,” which seems appropriate. The downhill grade here is to the southeast. In wider views these channels extend from the northwest to the southeast about 31 miles total (with this location near the center), with the total elevation loss about 3,000 feet.
Note the splash apron around the 4,500-foot-wide unnamed crater as well as how the largest channel seems to terminate suddenly at the crater. Though at first glance it appears this impact occurred after the channels, that some of the channels cut into that splash apron suggests otherwise.
The dot marked #1 on the overview map to the right marks the location, in the northwest quadrant of 185-mile-wide Newton Crater. This is the fourth cool image I have featured inside Newton, with the other three indicated by their own numbered dots:
- 2: August 17, 2022: Get above 30 degrees latitude on Mars and you can find ice everywhere
- 3: September 5, 2022: Gullies and glaciers in a crater on Mars
- 4: September 23, 2022: Above ground and underground Martian drainage
All four images suggest that the floor of Newton crater has a lot of near surface ice, causing these meandering channels sometime in the past as well as numerous other glacial features as well as erosion gullies. As this crater is at 39 degrees south latitude and directly inside the mid-latitude bands where many glacial features are found, this impression is reasonable.
In the case of today’s cool image, the stippled surface suggests that near-surface ice is sublimating away and causing the surface to roughen and erode. Whether the channels were formed by liquid water in the distance past or by glaciers more recently remains an unanswered question.
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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