Strings of Martian cones
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on May 25, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The scientists describe these cones as “longitudinally aligned cones,” but this is puzzling since the alignment runs from the northwest to the south east, not north-south along the longitude.
No matter. The alignment is in itself the mystery, especially because the full image shows many more strings of cones in this area, all running from the northwest to the southeast. The strings also are all curved in the same way, sagging to the southwest as if expressing a wave flowing in that direction.
What could create these strings of cones? The overview map below gives us a hint.
The white dot on the overview map to the right, about 1,000 miles east of the shield volcano Elysium Mons, marks the location of these cones. At 26 degrees north latitude, this is dry volcano country on Mars, where much of the plains surrounding Elysium are smooth flood lava. It appears that is what this terrain is as well, though what caused that flood lava to create these cones remains a mystery. Could they be an expression of topography covered by lava? If so, that doesn’t explain their alignment. Maybe the cones reveal underground fissures where lava could bubble up from below, but this also fails to explain their alignment.
As I have said numerous times before, Mars is wonderful, Mars is strange, but above all, Mars is alien.
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 picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on May 25, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The scientists describe these cones as “longitudinally aligned cones,” but this is puzzling since the alignment runs from the northwest to the south east, not north-south along the longitude.
No matter. The alignment is in itself the mystery, especially because the full image shows many more strings of cones in this area, all running from the northwest to the southeast. The strings also are all curved in the same way, sagging to the southwest as if expressing a wave flowing in that direction.
What could create these strings of cones? The overview map below gives us a hint.
The white dot on the overview map to the right, about 1,000 miles east of the shield volcano Elysium Mons, marks the location of these cones. At 26 degrees north latitude, this is dry volcano country on Mars, where much of the plains surrounding Elysium are smooth flood lava. It appears that is what this terrain is as well, though what caused that flood lava to create these cones remains a mystery. Could they be an expression of topography covered by lava? If so, that doesn’t explain their alignment. Maybe the cones reveal underground fissures where lava could bubble up from below, but this also fails to explain their alignment.
As I have said numerous times before, Mars is wonderful, Mars is strange, but above all, Mars is alien.
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
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