Swirls of layers and dunes at the bottom of Valles Marineris
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 25, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small spot of the floor of Mars’ giant canyon Valles Marineris, the largest such canyon known in the solar system, as indicated by the white dot on the overview map above.
This location is not actually at the very bottom of the canyon, but on a very large mountainous bench extending out about 20 miles from the canyon’s south rim. It seems there is a lot of dust and sand on this bench, producing many miles of swirling dunes. It also appears there are many terraced layers in the region as well, which also swirl in curves going in many different directions. Though it appears that most of the swirls in this picture are from layers in the bedrock, this conclusion is not certain. For example, are the curves on the top of the mesa dunes or bedrock layers? The answer is hardly clear.
For scale, the canyon at this location is about 80 to 90 miles wide. The northern rim rises five miles from the bottom to the top, while the south rises seven miles. And yet, though five to ten times larger than Earth’s Grand Canyon, this is only a small side spur of Valles Marineris.
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.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 25, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small spot of the floor of Mars’ giant canyon Valles Marineris, the largest such canyon known in the solar system, as indicated by the white dot on the overview map above.
This location is not actually at the very bottom of the canyon, but on a very large mountainous bench extending out about 20 miles from the canyon’s south rim. It seems there is a lot of dust and sand on this bench, producing many miles of swirling dunes. It also appears there are many terraced layers in the region as well, which also swirl in curves going in many different directions. Though it appears that most of the swirls in this picture are from layers in the bedrock, this conclusion is not certain. For example, are the curves on the top of the mesa dunes or bedrock layers? The answer is hardly clear.
For scale, the canyon at this location is about 80 to 90 miles wide. The northern rim rises five miles from the bottom to the top, while the south rises seven miles. And yet, though five to ten times larger than Earth’s Grand Canyon, this is only a small side spur of Valles Marineris.
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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