The prevailing winds in Mars’ volcano country
Click for original image.
Today’s cool image is actual one new picture and four past images, which taken together reveal something about the larger wind patterns on Mars. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 27, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and shows a tiny wind-swept section of the giant volcanic ash field dubbed the Medusae Fossae Formation, about the size of the subcontinent of India and thought to be source of most of the dust on Mars.
The innumerable parallel thin ridges here all suggest that the prevailing winds blow from the southeast to the northwest. As they blow, the scour the surface ash out, and sometimes reveal the underlying bedrock, which here shows up as those small peaks and a handful of northeast-to-southwest trending larger ridges. Note too that the picture shown is only a small section of the full image, which shows that this landscape continues for a considerable distance in all directions.
The yellow dot labeled #1 on the overview map to the right marks this location. The four surrounding dots are previous cool images of other locations in the Medusae Fossae Formation, all found on the edges or inside the giant 700-mile-long mound dubbed Eumenides Dorsum. Numbers #2, #4, and #5 all indicate the same direction for the prevailing winds, from the southeast to the northwest. Apparently, as the thick mound of volcanic ash that comprises Eumenides Dorsum descends to the northwest the wind blows along its length, taking the ash in that direction until it peters out around image #5.
Only at cool image #3 do the prevailing winds blow in a different direction, from the west to the east. The reason however is clear. This location is inside an east-west oriented canyon that cuts into Eumenides Dorum, and the wind appears to be directed into that canyon and follow its path out eastward into the wider plains.
That the pattern of those southeast-to northwest prevailing winds however appears to extend over an area more than 700 miles long and 400 miles wide tells us much about the Martian atmosphere and weather patterns. The patterns are large, and also long-lived, as that thin atmosphere needed a lot of time to carve this ridge pattern across such a wide area.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
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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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Click for original image.
Today’s cool image is actual one new picture and four past images, which taken together reveal something about the larger wind patterns on Mars. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 27, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and shows a tiny wind-swept section of the giant volcanic ash field dubbed the Medusae Fossae Formation, about the size of the subcontinent of India and thought to be source of most of the dust on Mars.
The innumerable parallel thin ridges here all suggest that the prevailing winds blow from the southeast to the northwest. As they blow, the scour the surface ash out, and sometimes reveal the underlying bedrock, which here shows up as those small peaks and a handful of northeast-to-southwest trending larger ridges. Note too that the picture shown is only a small section of the full image, which shows that this landscape continues for a considerable distance in all directions.
The yellow dot labeled #1 on the overview map to the right marks this location. The four surrounding dots are previous cool images of other locations in the Medusae Fossae Formation, all found on the edges or inside the giant 700-mile-long mound dubbed Eumenides Dorsum. Numbers #2, #4, and #5 all indicate the same direction for the prevailing winds, from the southeast to the northwest. Apparently, as the thick mound of volcanic ash that comprises Eumenides Dorsum descends to the northwest the wind blows along its length, taking the ash in that direction until it peters out around image #5.
Only at cool image #3 do the prevailing winds blow in a different direction, from the west to the east. The reason however is clear. This location is inside an east-west oriented canyon that cuts into Eumenides Dorum, and the wind appears to be directed into that canyon and follow its path out eastward into the wider plains.
That the pattern of those southeast-to northwest prevailing winds however appears to extend over an area more than 700 miles long and 400 miles wide tells us much about the Martian atmosphere and weather patterns. The patterns are large, and also long-lived, as that thin atmosphere needed a lot of time to carve this ridge pattern across such a wide area.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
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