The strange terrain in the basement of Mars
Click for original image.
I’ve posted numerous cool images about the weird and alien terrain found routinely in what is Mars’ death valley, Hellas Basin. Today is no different. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 23, 2023 to fill a gap in the schedule of the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Thus, it isn’t linked to any particular research, and its target was chosen by the camera science team almost at random.
What it shows is a strangely striated plain interspersed with rounded mesas and partly buried craters. The shape of the striations suggests that they were formed from wind blowing consistently from the north. This hypothesis is reinforced by the material that seems piled up at the base of the two bottom mesas, as if it was blown there.
Is ice or lava however?
The white dot in the northwest quadrant of Hellas Basin of the overview map to the right marks the location. The latitude is 41 degrees south, placing it far enough from the equator that near-surface ice could very well be present. The low elevation however seems to make this less likely, based on images so far gathered inside Hellas.
Is it lava? The nearby taffy terrain is generally thought to be the hardened flow of vicious material, most likely lava. This picture could thus be showing us a flood lava plain, with the surface striations caused by erosion or wind-blown dust and volcanic ash.
Or possibly we are looking alien geology formed by a combination of lava and glacial processes on a planet with one third the gravity of Earth and climate almost always below freezing.
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.
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Click for original image.
I’ve posted numerous cool images about the weird and alien terrain found routinely in what is Mars’ death valley, Hellas Basin. Today is no different. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 23, 2023 to fill a gap in the schedule of the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Thus, it isn’t linked to any particular research, and its target was chosen by the camera science team almost at random.
What it shows is a strangely striated plain interspersed with rounded mesas and partly buried craters. The shape of the striations suggests that they were formed from wind blowing consistently from the north. This hypothesis is reinforced by the material that seems piled up at the base of the two bottom mesas, as if it was blown there.
Is ice or lava however?
The white dot in the northwest quadrant of Hellas Basin of the overview map to the right marks the location. The latitude is 41 degrees south, placing it far enough from the equator that near-surface ice could very well be present. The low elevation however seems to make this less likely, based on images so far gathered inside Hellas.
Is it lava? The nearby taffy terrain is generally thought to be the hardened flow of vicious material, most likely lava. This picture could thus be showing us a flood lava plain, with the surface striations caused by erosion or wind-blown dust and volcanic ash.
Or possibly we are looking alien geology formed by a combination of lava and glacial processes on a planet with one third the gravity of Earth and climate almost always below freezing.
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.
Again, these pictures remind me so much of snow and ice formations.
In particular, if you zoom in very closely to the area just below the extremely large mound (cropped out of the smaller picture in the post) you’ll see what appear to be large boulders that have trailing and tapering structures “behind” them. Each one of these points towards the bottom of the picture, to the south.
Every winter on a high plateau here in Wyoming the snow melts off in the sun. Because we’re at around 45° North latitude the shadows of each individual sagebrush are to the North…and going through that area is funny because each sagebrush has its own little patch of snow behind it pointing directly north.
Here in the Southern Martian hemisphere, is it possible that the same thing is happening? That these are mounds of shadow-sheltered ice (water or CO2) that would otherwise have melted or sublimated away?
Just a thought.
Blackwing1: Your thoughts are good, describing processes seen on Mars. For example, in the high latitudes (above 60 degrees) on Mars a mantle of CO2 settles on everything in winter, only to sublimate away when spring arrives. This location however is at 41 degrees, and it is the Martian fall when this picture was taken.
It is possible that we are seeing ice behind small mounds, but I can’t imagine what would line those mounds up so precisely in these parallel lines, equidistant from each other in all directions.