The pimpled floor of Isidis Basin on Mars
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 21, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled merely as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research project but chosen by the camera team to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule in order to maintain its proper temperature.
When they do this they try to pick a target that is somewhat interesting, though it is not always possible. In this case it appears they succeeded in capturing a location filled with lots of puzzling stuff, including low 60-to-80-foot-high mesas with either flat- or hollow-tops, shallow craters that appear almost buried, and other craters that appear so deep and shadowed that it is even possible these are skylights into underground caves.
In between these features the flat landscape has a scattering of ripple dunes, all oriented in the same direction and thus implying that the prevailing winds are or were blowing from the northeast to the southwest.
The red dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, inside Isidis Basin, the third largest basin on Mars and believed to have been formed by a gigantic impact about four billion years ago. The inset shows that the general landscape on the floor of Isidis is similar to the picture above, a scattering of small mesas interspersed with craters.
How did this surface form? It is believed that the floor of Isidis is mostly flood lava left over from that impact. The mesas could be small volcanic pimples from which lava bubbled upward before it hardened. Or they could be the top of the original topography, now buried by that flood lava. This flooding clearly covered the shallow craters.
The small and deep craters however likely came much later. They could have formed by impacts that were able to drill into the lava deeply. And while it is also possible we are looking into pits formed simply by the collapse of the surface into underground voids, the randomness of these pits makes that less likely. If there was an underground lava tube, the pits would line up. Here they do not.
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.
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3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 21, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled merely as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research project but chosen by the camera team to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule in order to maintain its proper temperature.
When they do this they try to pick a target that is somewhat interesting, though it is not always possible. In this case it appears they succeeded in capturing a location filled with lots of puzzling stuff, including low 60-to-80-foot-high mesas with either flat- or hollow-tops, shallow craters that appear almost buried, and other craters that appear so deep and shadowed that it is even possible these are skylights into underground caves.
In between these features the flat landscape has a scattering of ripple dunes, all oriented in the same direction and thus implying that the prevailing winds are or were blowing from the northeast to the southwest.
The red dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, inside Isidis Basin, the third largest basin on Mars and believed to have been formed by a gigantic impact about four billion years ago. The inset shows that the general landscape on the floor of Isidis is similar to the picture above, a scattering of small mesas interspersed with craters.
How did this surface form? It is believed that the floor of Isidis is mostly flood lava left over from that impact. The mesas could be small volcanic pimples from which lava bubbled upward before it hardened. Or they could be the top of the original topography, now buried by that flood lava. This flooding clearly covered the shallow craters.
The small and deep craters however likely came much later. They could have formed by impacts that were able to drill into the lava deeply. And while it is also possible we are looking into pits formed simply by the collapse of the surface into underground voids, the randomness of these pits makes that less likely. If there was an underground lava tube, the pits would line up. Here they do not.
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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