“Thar’s ice in them hills!”
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 25, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the camera team labels as a “mound in the southern highlands.”
The mound in question sits in the center of the sunken depression, and at the highest resolution shows its top to be cracked and broken, as if something is attempting to break out by pushing up from below.
Everything about this picture screams near-surface ice. The cracked mound suggests ice sublimating into gas, which applies pressure to the surface and thus the cracks. The depression suggest that much of the near-surface ice at this location has already disappeared, causing the ground to sag. All the craters lack upraised rims. If caused by impacts, the ground here was soft enough that the impactor simply sank into the ground. Imagine dropping a rock you’ve heated into snow. It would simply leave a hole.
But there’s more. The white dot in the overview map above marks the location. In the inset, the lighter area surrounding this depression resembles an ice sheet that is slowly sublimating away. There are also other similar depressions in that lighter area. The lighter area also has fewer craters than the darker regions nearby, suggesting that this ice sheet covers the older impacts.
The location is in the southern cratered highlands in a mid-latitude region where many images indicate the existence of layers of ice deep below ground. This picture is more evidence of the same, but it also indicates the presence of ice very close to the surface as well.
The orbital data continues to tell us that Mars is not a dry desert like the Sahara, but an icy desert like Antarctica. There will be plenty of water for future colonists. All they will have to do is stick a shovel in the ground, dig it up, and process it.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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 September 25, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the camera team labels as a “mound in the southern highlands.”
The mound in question sits in the center of the sunken depression, and at the highest resolution shows its top to be cracked and broken, as if something is attempting to break out by pushing up from below.
Everything about this picture screams near-surface ice. The cracked mound suggests ice sublimating into gas, which applies pressure to the surface and thus the cracks. The depression suggest that much of the near-surface ice at this location has already disappeared, causing the ground to sag. All the craters lack upraised rims. If caused by impacts, the ground here was soft enough that the impactor simply sank into the ground. Imagine dropping a rock you’ve heated into snow. It would simply leave a hole.
But there’s more. The white dot in the overview map above marks the location. In the inset, the lighter area surrounding this depression resembles an ice sheet that is slowly sublimating away. There are also other similar depressions in that lighter area. The lighter area also has fewer craters than the darker regions nearby, suggesting that this ice sheet covers the older impacts.
The location is in the southern cratered highlands in a mid-latitude region where many images indicate the existence of layers of ice deep below ground. This picture is more evidence of the same, but it also indicates the presence of ice very close to the surface as well.
The orbital data continues to tell us that Mars is not a dry desert like the Sahara, but an icy desert like Antarctica. There will be plenty of water for future colonists. All they will have to do is stick a shovel in the ground, dig it up, and process it.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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