Near the Martian south pole
Cool image time! The image above, reduced and cropped to show here, shows an area at 87 degrees south latitude, not far from the south pole of Mars and in the region at the edge of its icecap of dry ice.
It is late summer in the Southern hemisphere, so the Sun is low in the sky and subtle topography is accentuated in orbital images.
We see many shallow pits in the bright residual cap of carbon dioxide ice (also called “Swiss cheese terrain”). There is also a deeper, circular formation that penetrates through the ice and dust. This might be an impact crater or it could be a collapse pit.
Because of the low Sun angle the bottom of the deep pit is poorly lit, making it hard to determine the pit’s nature. What can be seen at its bottom however are some patches of carbon dioxide ice, melting in the same manner as the dry ice in the surrounding terrain. Also, the dust pattern surrounding the pit indicates the prevailing winds at this location, consistently blowing to the northeast.
I am certain there will be additional photos taken of this pit, when the Sun is higher in the sky and its floor is thus better illuminated.
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 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
Cool image time! The image above, reduced and cropped to show here, shows an area at 87 degrees south latitude, not far from the south pole of Mars and in the region at the edge of its icecap of dry ice.
It is late summer in the Southern hemisphere, so the Sun is low in the sky and subtle topography is accentuated in orbital images.
We see many shallow pits in the bright residual cap of carbon dioxide ice (also called “Swiss cheese terrain”). There is also a deeper, circular formation that penetrates through the ice and dust. This might be an impact crater or it could be a collapse pit.
Because of the low Sun angle the bottom of the deep pit is poorly lit, making it hard to determine the pit’s nature. What can be seen at its bottom however are some patches of carbon dioxide ice, melting in the same manner as the dry ice in the surrounding terrain. Also, the dust pattern surrounding the pit indicates the prevailing winds at this location, consistently blowing to the northeast.
I am certain there will be additional photos taken of this pit, when the Sun is higher in the sky and its floor is thus better illuminated.
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 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
I don’t see a rim on the crater suggesting that it is an impact crater.
DougSpace: Granted, no impact rim is visible, but this is the region of the south pole, where the carbon dioxide icecap evaporates and refreezes seasonally, causing significant surface changes with each cycle. While a pit seems a good first guess, I would be careful about drawing any strong conclusions yet.
Dry ice snow. Yeah, really sounds like a nice place to live.
Makes me wonder why Antarctica isn’t attracting droves of settlers, with all its relatively tropical temperatures and you know, stuff like air.
BSJ—
“…stuff like air.”
Excellent wordsmith-ery!
BSJ,
If Antarctica was suddenly thrown open to settlement – Oklahoma Land Rush-style – you would certainly see people and resource companies taking quick advantage. Antarctica isn’t settled because the Big Dogs – the very biggest being the U.S. – have decided to keep it a science-only international park. There is a small amount of adventure tourism by both ship and plane. Beyond that, Antarctica is a capitalism-free zone. Elon Musk is likely to have his million-population city on Mars before anyone is allowed to settle in Antarctica.