Thick flow exiting dramatic canyon on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on July 24, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “viscous flow” that has apparently carved the wide curving canyon as it slowly flows into open country to the south.
I would estimate the height of that canyon wall to be around 3,000 feet, though this is a very rough guess. I also image a trail switchbacking up the nose of that canyon wall would make for a truly stupendous hiking experience.
The flow filling the canyon floor appears very glacial, which is not surprising as this canyon is at 37 degrees north latitude, in the mid-latitude band where many glacial features are found. The overview map below provides some more detailed context.
The black dot, top center, marks this canyon’s location, a small side canyon draining from the north into the much wider Mamers Valles system that meanders 600 miles from the interior of Arabia Terra into the northern lowland plains of Mars. This canyon system also sits on the western end of the 2,000 long mid-latitude strip I dub glacier country, because almost every high resolution image — like this one — shows glacial features.
Mamers Valles itself appears to be filled with its own much larger glacial flow, as two earlier cool images have documented (here and here).
Some scientists have hypothesized that this meandering canyon includes many underground drainages, which have acted to create the canyon when the voids below caused the surface to sink.
To my eye, the image above does not support that theory. Nothing in this picture suggests surface slumping, in any way. Instead, the glacial flow clearly looks like it has created the canyon, on the surface, over the eons.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. The ebook can also be purchased direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from me (hardback $24.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $5.00). Just email me at zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on July 24, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “viscous flow” that has apparently carved the wide curving canyon as it slowly flows into open country to the south.
I would estimate the height of that canyon wall to be around 3,000 feet, though this is a very rough guess. I also image a trail switchbacking up the nose of that canyon wall would make for a truly stupendous hiking experience.
The flow filling the canyon floor appears very glacial, which is not surprising as this canyon is at 37 degrees north latitude, in the mid-latitude band where many glacial features are found. The overview map below provides some more detailed context.
The black dot, top center, marks this canyon’s location, a small side canyon draining from the north into the much wider Mamers Valles system that meanders 600 miles from the interior of Arabia Terra into the northern lowland plains of Mars. This canyon system also sits on the western end of the 2,000 long mid-latitude strip I dub glacier country, because almost every high resolution image — like this one — shows glacial features.
Mamers Valles itself appears to be filled with its own much larger glacial flow, as two earlier cool images have documented (here and here).
Some scientists have hypothesized that this meandering canyon includes many underground drainages, which have acted to create the canyon when the voids below caused the surface to sink.
To my eye, the image above does not support that theory. Nothing in this picture suggests surface slumping, in any way. Instead, the glacial flow clearly looks like it has created the canyon, on the surface, over the eons.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. The ebook can also be purchased direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from me (hardback $24.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $5.00). Just email me at zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
I have always wondered what it has been about Nature/the Universe that it has operated almost all of the time without witnesses.
It’s almost as if the Universe doesn’t really need us.
Yet, in has allowed the existence of pond scum.