Taffy terrain in Mars’ death valley
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and enhanced to post here, was taken on December 17, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label “banded terrain and possible breached crater.”
Banded terrain is another name for a geological feature dubbed “taffy terrain” and only found on Mars, and furthermore only found there in Hellas Basin, the deepest giant impact basin on the red planet. This taffy terrain is considered very young, no than 3 billion years old, and formed from the flow of some form of viscous material, though what that material is remains unsolved.
This image however may help solve that mystery. The breached crater is just off frame to the upper right. The two-fingered flow coming down from the picture’s top is the flow coming out of the crater’s gap.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, on the edge of the region inside Hellas Basin marked taffy terrain. The white box in the inset indicates the area covered by the picture above, with the one-mile wide breached crater just to the northeast.
The flow pattern suggests a flow out of the crater, which means this crater is likely a volcanic caldera and not an impact crater. Whether the volcano was spitting out magma or some mixture of wet mud is still undetermined. The picture was likely taken to investigate that very question.
One clue is the latitude, 40 degrees south, in the mid-latitudes where orbital images detect numerous glacial features. Thus this increases the odds that ice or water was a factor in creating this flow.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and enhanced to post here, was taken on December 17, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label “banded terrain and possible breached crater.”
Banded terrain is another name for a geological feature dubbed “taffy terrain” and only found on Mars, and furthermore only found there in Hellas Basin, the deepest giant impact basin on the red planet. This taffy terrain is considered very young, no than 3 billion years old, and formed from the flow of some form of viscous material, though what that material is remains unsolved.
This image however may help solve that mystery. The breached crater is just off frame to the upper right. The two-fingered flow coming down from the picture’s top is the flow coming out of the crater’s gap.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, on the edge of the region inside Hellas Basin marked taffy terrain. The white box in the inset indicates the area covered by the picture above, with the one-mile wide breached crater just to the northeast.
The flow pattern suggests a flow out of the crater, which means this crater is likely a volcanic caldera and not an impact crater. Whether the volcano was spitting out magma or some mixture of wet mud is still undetermined. The picture was likely taken to investigate that very question.
One clue is the latitude, 40 degrees south, in the mid-latitudes where orbital images detect numerous glacial features. Thus this increases the odds that ice or water was a factor in creating this flow.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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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