Splashed lava from a Martian impact
Click for original image.
Almost always it is impossible to understand a high resolution image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) unless you also take a wider view. Today’s cool image to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is a perfect example.
Taken on January 6, 2023, it shows what the science team labeled as a “rocky deposit on crater floor.” To my eye however none of this appeared tremendously rocky. Instead, what I saw was a curved and layered flow feature whose ancient age was suggested by the many later craters scattered across its surface.
Still, its origin was unclear. It isn’t ice, not only because of its apparent resistance from disturbance from those later crater impacts but because it is located at about 20 degrees north latitude, in the dry equatorial regions of Mars. If lava, what is its source? As I noted, a wider look was necessary to answer that question.
Click for original image.
The image to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, is an MRO context camera image, taken on April 23, 2022. The white rectangle marks the area covered by the cool picture above. What it shows us is that this flow feature is the ejecta melt splashed outward from the impact that created the 6-mile-wide crater to the south. The crater also further confirms the age of that impact, as the rim of the crater is very eroded. The dark dune fields of dust trapped inside this crater that indicate prevailing winds from the east suggest that for many recent eons that erosion was caused by the wind and the dust, slowing grinding the crater’s rim down until it took on its present soft indistinct appearance.
The overview map to the right provides further context, which might also help explain the image’s interesting colors. This small crater, indicated by the arrow, is inside a 50-mile-wide but unnamed crater just north of Jezero Crater, where the rover Perseverance and helicopter Ingenuity are located. It is also only about a 100 miles southeast of the region dubbed Nili Fossae, considered to be one of Mars’ most likely mining regions. The many colors in this region suggest the presence of many minerals, which further suggest the presence of many other mining resources not yet identified.
The larger unnamed crater is also very eroded, indicated its even greater age. When the impact occurred, probably several billion years ago, the environment here was a very different place, sitting likely at a different latitude, a change caused by Mars’ ever shifting rotational tilt. The planet also had a different atmosphere and climate. And since that impact then the cycles of change have been many, a precise history of which we presently do not have.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
Click for original image.
Almost always it is impossible to understand a high resolution image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) unless you also take a wider view. Today’s cool image to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is a perfect example.
Taken on January 6, 2023, it shows what the science team labeled as a “rocky deposit on crater floor.” To my eye however none of this appeared tremendously rocky. Instead, what I saw was a curved and layered flow feature whose ancient age was suggested by the many later craters scattered across its surface.
Still, its origin was unclear. It isn’t ice, not only because of its apparent resistance from disturbance from those later crater impacts but because it is located at about 20 degrees north latitude, in the dry equatorial regions of Mars. If lava, what is its source? As I noted, a wider look was necessary to answer that question.
Click for original image.
The image to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, is an MRO context camera image, taken on April 23, 2022. The white rectangle marks the area covered by the cool picture above. What it shows us is that this flow feature is the ejecta melt splashed outward from the impact that created the 6-mile-wide crater to the south. The crater also further confirms the age of that impact, as the rim of the crater is very eroded. The dark dune fields of dust trapped inside this crater that indicate prevailing winds from the east suggest that for many recent eons that erosion was caused by the wind and the dust, slowing grinding the crater’s rim down until it took on its present soft indistinct appearance.
The overview map to the right provides further context, which might also help explain the image’s interesting colors. This small crater, indicated by the arrow, is inside a 50-mile-wide but unnamed crater just north of Jezero Crater, where the rover Perseverance and helicopter Ingenuity are located. It is also only about a 100 miles southeast of the region dubbed Nili Fossae, considered to be one of Mars’ most likely mining regions. The many colors in this region suggest the presence of many minerals, which further suggest the presence of many other mining resources not yet identified.
The larger unnamed crater is also very eroded, indicated its even greater age. When the impact occurred, probably several billion years ago, the environment here was a very different place, sitting likely at a different latitude, a change caused by Mars’ ever shifting rotational tilt. The planet also had a different atmosphere and climate. And since that impact then the cycles of change have been many, a precise history of which we presently do not have.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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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