Sunken butte on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 1, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label a “layered butte.” Like the mesas in the American southwest, those layers, or terraces, mark the geological history of this place, where over time layer upon layer was placed down, and then eroded away except for this mesa.
What makes the mesa even more intriguing and strange, however, are surrounding concentric cracks and the moat at the mesa’s base. These features suggest that at some point the ground below the mesa collapsed so that the entire mesa dropped, as a unit.
What could cause this? The overview map below provides a clue, though certainly not an answer.
The white dot in the northern lowland plains of Utopia Planitia, at 36 degrees north latitude, marks the location of this butte. It is not only far enough north that a great deal of near surface ice is expected, which could collapse under pressure from the mesa’s mass, this is also a region with many meandering channels, suggesting either water or glacial flows, both of which could cause erosion as well as help wash out the ice below this mesa, causing the collapse.
I am only guessing of course, and readily admit that I could be completely wrong. We could also be looking at some form of ice volcano, the layers implying different eruptions over time.
Or some other geological process unique to Mars and not yet understood. We need to go there to explain this butte with more certainty.
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 full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 1, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label a “layered butte.” Like the mesas in the American southwest, those layers, or terraces, mark the geological history of this place, where over time layer upon layer was placed down, and then eroded away except for this mesa.
What makes the mesa even more intriguing and strange, however, are surrounding concentric cracks and the moat at the mesa’s base. These features suggest that at some point the ground below the mesa collapsed so that the entire mesa dropped, as a unit.
What could cause this? The overview map below provides a clue, though certainly not an answer.
The white dot in the northern lowland plains of Utopia Planitia, at 36 degrees north latitude, marks the location of this butte. It is not only far enough north that a great deal of near surface ice is expected, which could collapse under pressure from the mesa’s mass, this is also a region with many meandering channels, suggesting either water or glacial flows, both of which could cause erosion as well as help wash out the ice below this mesa, causing the collapse.
I am only guessing of course, and readily admit that I could be completely wrong. We could also be looking at some form of ice volcano, the layers implying different eruptions over time.
Or some other geological process unique to Mars and not yet understood. We need to go there to explain this butte with more certainty.
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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