Revisiting Mars’ glacier country
Click for full image.
With today’s cool image we return to what I have labeled glacier country on Mars, though this time the image shows a Martian glacial feature that while resembling vaguely such features seen on Earth, has an alienness to it that requires some explanation.
The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on March 24, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The section I have focused on is the floor of a depression with a number of parallel pits, more or less aligned with the packed north-south ridges that cover the entire floor.
Normally, the north-south ridges would suggest repeated glacial flows moving to either the west or to the east. Such movement could over time, cause the ridges to separate, creating the cracks or pits that we see here. The trouble is that the slope of this depression is very unclear. In fact, the wider view below shows that this depression appears mostly enclosed, or if not it does not seem to be flowing in any particular direction.
While there is a faint suggestion of a slope down to the west, that is hardly obvious or proven. In fact, the surrounding terrain suggests instead no clear slope at all, with its pits and depressions forming in almost a random pattern. Moreover, the depressions all give the impression that they are filled like ponds with ice. Why then would the ice in these depressions have these repeating north-south ridges, almost like waves?
This region, dubbed Protonilus Mensae, is an area of chaos terrain, random mesas separated by criss-crossing canyons, caused by erosion and typically found in the transition zone between the cratered southern highlands and the northern lowland plains. The image itself is of the floor of one of the wider canyons, just to the northeast of the rim of 85-mile-wide Moreux Crater.
The red rectangle in the overview map to the right shows the location of this image. The numbered blue boxes show glacial features that I have previously highlighted:
- 1. Buried glaciers flowing off of Martian mesa
- 2. Brain Terrain on Mars
- 3. How to spot a glacier on Mars
- 4. Glacier country on Mars
As I noted in the fourth post,
If you go to the MRO archive of images from its high resolution camera and go specifically to this location (link here), you will get access to all the high resolution photos so far taken of Protonilus. Click on any red box at this archive and you will see a different MRO image that invokes the same glacial features. If I wanted to, I could post a cool glacier image for practically every single one.
In today’s image, we see that sometimes these Martian glacial features resemble what we’d expect on Earth, but at the same time raise questions that need further exploration.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. The ebook can also be purchased direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from me (hardback $24.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $5.00). Just email me at zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
Click for full image.
With today’s cool image we return to what I have labeled glacier country on Mars, though this time the image shows a Martian glacial feature that while resembling vaguely such features seen on Earth, has an alienness to it that requires some explanation.
The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on March 24, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The section I have focused on is the floor of a depression with a number of parallel pits, more or less aligned with the packed north-south ridges that cover the entire floor.
Normally, the north-south ridges would suggest repeated glacial flows moving to either the west or to the east. Such movement could over time, cause the ridges to separate, creating the cracks or pits that we see here. The trouble is that the slope of this depression is very unclear. In fact, the wider view below shows that this depression appears mostly enclosed, or if not it does not seem to be flowing in any particular direction.
While there is a faint suggestion of a slope down to the west, that is hardly obvious or proven. In fact, the surrounding terrain suggests instead no clear slope at all, with its pits and depressions forming in almost a random pattern. Moreover, the depressions all give the impression that they are filled like ponds with ice. Why then would the ice in these depressions have these repeating north-south ridges, almost like waves?
This region, dubbed Protonilus Mensae, is an area of chaos terrain, random mesas separated by criss-crossing canyons, caused by erosion and typically found in the transition zone between the cratered southern highlands and the northern lowland plains. The image itself is of the floor of one of the wider canyons, just to the northeast of the rim of 85-mile-wide Moreux Crater.
The red rectangle in the overview map to the right shows the location of this image. The numbered blue boxes show glacial features that I have previously highlighted:
- 1. Buried glaciers flowing off of Martian mesa
- 2. Brain Terrain on Mars
- 3. How to spot a glacier on Mars
- 4. Glacier country on Mars
As I noted in the fourth post,
If you go to the MRO archive of images from its high resolution camera and go specifically to this location (link here), you will get access to all the high resolution photos so far taken of Protonilus. Click on any red box at this archive and you will see a different MRO image that invokes the same glacial features. If I wanted to, I could post a cool glacier image for practically every single one.
In today’s image, we see that sometimes these Martian glacial features resemble what we’d expect on Earth, but at the same time raise questions that need further exploration.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. The ebook can also be purchased direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from me (hardback $24.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $5.00). Just email me at zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
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