Recent impact on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! While finding recent impacts on Mars is not that unusual, the image to the right, found among the November image download from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), was dramatic enough that I decided that more people besides planetary scientists should see it. For scale the photograph is exactly 500 meters wide.
The photograph, taken September 26, 2019, also illustrates all the typical aspects of impact craters, and how they change the landscape.
This impact took place sometime between July 17, 2012 and January 4, 2018. We know this because it wasn’t there in a low-resolution image taken by the wide angle survey camera on MRO on the first date but was there when that same camera took another picture on the second date. Below is a side-by-side comparison of that July 17, 2012 image with the high resolution 2019 image above.
The low resolution of the 2012 image makes it impossible to tell if the small craters in the high resolution 2019 image are new. Several look fresh, including the three inside the dark splotch. One or two beyond might have their own small dark aprons, suggesting they might be secondary impacts.
At the same time, this impact could have been caused by a relatively small bolide, which would then have been vaporized on impact and would have therefore left a very small crater. On that assumption, none of the craters here are new.
The asymmetric shape of the splotch itself suggests the three craters within it are new. To my eye it appears all three occurred at the same time, as the splotch seems extended sideways, as if it was made by three overlapping splotches centered on each crater.
To answer these questions, however, requires an understanding of impacts beyond my pay scale. It is possible that a researcher who studies these things would be able to estimate the bolide size from the size of the splotches, and thus determine whether or not the craters were produced by three simultaneous impacts from a object broken into three pieces.
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.
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3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! While finding recent impacts on Mars is not that unusual, the image to the right, found among the November image download from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), was dramatic enough that I decided that more people besides planetary scientists should see it. For scale the photograph is exactly 500 meters wide.
The photograph, taken September 26, 2019, also illustrates all the typical aspects of impact craters, and how they change the landscape.
This impact took place sometime between July 17, 2012 and January 4, 2018. We know this because it wasn’t there in a low-resolution image taken by the wide angle survey camera on MRO on the first date but was there when that same camera took another picture on the second date. Below is a side-by-side comparison of that July 17, 2012 image with the high resolution 2019 image above.
The low resolution of the 2012 image makes it impossible to tell if the small craters in the high resolution 2019 image are new. Several look fresh, including the three inside the dark splotch. One or two beyond might have their own small dark aprons, suggesting they might be secondary impacts.
At the same time, this impact could have been caused by a relatively small bolide, which would then have been vaporized on impact and would have therefore left a very small crater. On that assumption, none of the craters here are new.
The asymmetric shape of the splotch itself suggests the three craters within it are new. To my eye it appears all three occurred at the same time, as the splotch seems extended sideways, as if it was made by three overlapping splotches centered on each crater.
To answer these questions, however, requires an understanding of impacts beyond my pay scale. It is possible that a researcher who studies these things would be able to estimate the bolide size from the size of the splotches, and thus determine whether or not the craters were produced by three simultaneous impacts from a object broken into three pieces.
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.
There are other curious features in the enlarged recent image such as the apparent dust devil track that makes a sharp right angle with one arm pointing right at the recent impact crater. Another is what appear to be parallel lines on the right side of the image running top to bottom. Some of the lines look like data drop-out, but others are surface features.