The layering at the Martian poles
Click for full image.
Click for full image.
In the past month the science teams of both Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) have released images showing the strange layering found in Burroughs Crater, located near the Martian south pole.
The top image above is the MRO image, rotated and cropped to post here. To the right is a cropped and reduced section of the TGO image.
Though both images look at the inside rim of the crater, they cover sections at opposite ends of the crater. The MRO image of the crater’s east interior rim, with the lowest areas to the right, while the TGO image shows the crater’s northwest interior rim, with the lowest areas on the bottom. As noted at the TGO image site:
The ‘polar layered deposits’ of Mars, as the ice caps are known, are made of layers upon layers of ice and dust that record how the climate of Mars has evolved in the last few million to hundreds of millions of years.
Many of the impact craters that surround the caps have layered mounds that appear similar to the polar layered deposits, and some, particularly in the north, are known to be composed of nearly pure water ice. Layered mounds, like the one imaged here in Burroughs crater, lie close to the south polar deposits, and have been less studied than the layers of the caps.
They may represent remnant ice deposits from past climates when the extent of the polar layered deposits reached to lower latitudes, or they may have been deposited independently, which would mean that they represent an entirely separate record of climate – perhaps extending further back into the history of the Mars.
The geological processes that are taking place at the Martian poles are truly alien, and though a lot of research has been done, we really don’t know enough to really explain what we see with any confidence. For example, dating these layers is difficult. They might span a very long time frame, or not. Are the layers a regular occurrence, or more random? Are they related to Mars’s orbit, as Earth’s ice ages are, or was it the long term evolutionary changes to the Martian climate that are thought to have occurred that caused them?
In this sense the failure of Mars Polar Lander in December 1999 still hurts. It would have landed at almost the same latitude as Burroughs Crater, and would have provided scientists some solid information, on the ground. of the geological processes going on here. Because of that failure, which occurred just as the spacecraft began its descent into the Martian atmosphere, we still have no direct information about the geology near the poles.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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.
Click for full image.
In the past month the science teams of both Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) have released images showing the strange layering found in Burroughs Crater, located near the Martian south pole.
The top image above is the MRO image, rotated and cropped to post here. To the right is a cropped and reduced section of the TGO image.
Though both images look at the inside rim of the crater, they cover sections at opposite ends of the crater. The MRO image of the crater’s east interior rim, with the lowest areas to the right, while the TGO image shows the crater’s northwest interior rim, with the lowest areas on the bottom. As noted at the TGO image site:
The ‘polar layered deposits’ of Mars, as the ice caps are known, are made of layers upon layers of ice and dust that record how the climate of Mars has evolved in the last few million to hundreds of millions of years.
Many of the impact craters that surround the caps have layered mounds that appear similar to the polar layered deposits, and some, particularly in the north, are known to be composed of nearly pure water ice. Layered mounds, like the one imaged here in Burroughs crater, lie close to the south polar deposits, and have been less studied than the layers of the caps.
They may represent remnant ice deposits from past climates when the extent of the polar layered deposits reached to lower latitudes, or they may have been deposited independently, which would mean that they represent an entirely separate record of climate – perhaps extending further back into the history of the Mars.
The geological processes that are taking place at the Martian poles are truly alien, and though a lot of research has been done, we really don’t know enough to really explain what we see with any confidence. For example, dating these layers is difficult. They might span a very long time frame, or not. Are the layers a regular occurrence, or more random? Are they related to Mars’s orbit, as Earth’s ice ages are, or was it the long term evolutionary changes to the Martian climate that are thought to have occurred that caused them?
In this sense the failure of Mars Polar Lander in December 1999 still hurts. It would have landed at almost the same latitude as Burroughs Crater, and would have provided scientists some solid information, on the ground. of the geological processes going on here. Because of that failure, which occurred just as the spacecraft began its descent into the Martian atmosphere, we still have no direct information about the geology near the poles.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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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