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.
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
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.
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
Readers: the rules for commenting!
No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.
However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.
Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.