Mysterious colors on Mars, near the landing site of Europe’s rover
Click for full image.
Cool image time! Today the science team for the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) released a new captioned image, which I have cropped and reduced to post here to the right.
The photo was taken October 12, 2020, and shows a small very colorful area on top of an isolated hill. To quote the caption, written by Sharon Wilson:
An isolated, elongated mound (about 1 mile wide and 3.75 miles long) rises above the smooth, surrounding plains. Horizontal layers are exposed at the northern end of the mound, and its surface is characterized by a very unusual quasi-circular pattern with varying colors that likely reflect diverse mineral compositions.
…The origin of this mound is unknown, but its formation may be related to the clay-bearing rocks in the nearby Oxia Planum region.
Click for full image.
The photo is false color, combining wavelengths in red, blue, and the infrared. To the right is a section of the full image, showing the entire elongated mound. The white box marks the location of the section above. This second photo has been rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here. Its colors are different than the image above because it uses different color filters, the red, blue, and green bands, thus producing colors closer to natural light.
As the caption notes, scientists don’t know what formed this isolated mound. Nor do they yet know the full meaning of the colors, or the cause of the many strange features on this mound.
The latitude here is about 19 degrees north. The location itself on the lower edge of the transition zone between the low northern plains and the southern highlands. The yellow in the first image as well as the red in the second suggests dust and sand. You can also see sand dunes inside the nearby craters. This is likely a dry place.
It is also near Oxia Planum, the targeted landing site of Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover, now scheduled to launch to Mars in 2022. The overview map to the right shows the landing ellipse, with this photo’s location about 130 miles away from the center of that ellipse and marked by the white cross.
To the west are the locations where Viking 1 and Pathfinder landed, in 1976 and 1997 respectively.
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.
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! Today the science team for the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) released a new captioned image, which I have cropped and reduced to post here to the right.
The photo was taken October 12, 2020, and shows a small very colorful area on top of an isolated hill. To quote the caption, written by Sharon Wilson:
An isolated, elongated mound (about 1 mile wide and 3.75 miles long) rises above the smooth, surrounding plains. Horizontal layers are exposed at the northern end of the mound, and its surface is characterized by a very unusual quasi-circular pattern with varying colors that likely reflect diverse mineral compositions.
…The origin of this mound is unknown, but its formation may be related to the clay-bearing rocks in the nearby Oxia Planum region.
Click for full image.
The photo is false color, combining wavelengths in red, blue, and the infrared. To the right is a section of the full image, showing the entire elongated mound. The white box marks the location of the section above. This second photo has been rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here. Its colors are different than the image above because it uses different color filters, the red, blue, and green bands, thus producing colors closer to natural light.
As the caption notes, scientists don’t know what formed this isolated mound. Nor do they yet know the full meaning of the colors, or the cause of the many strange features on this mound.
The latitude here is about 19 degrees north. The location itself on the lower edge of the transition zone between the low northern plains and the southern highlands. The yellow in the first image as well as the red in the second suggests dust and sand. You can also see sand dunes inside the nearby craters. This is likely a dry place.
It is also near Oxia Planum, the targeted landing site of Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover, now scheduled to launch to Mars in 2022. The overview map to the right shows the landing ellipse, with this photo’s location about 130 miles away from the center of that ellipse and marked by the white cross.
To the west are the locations where Viking 1 and Pathfinder landed, in 1976 and 1997 respectively.
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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