What the heck caused these cones to align on Mars?
Click for original image.
Time for another “What the heck?” cool image! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 23, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the science team labels as “longitudinally aligned cones”.
To my eye the cones visibile in this picture seem more aligned latitudinally, to the east-west, instead of longitudinally, north-south, but the larger view in the inset on the overview map below shows that on a larger scale, the cones do appear aligned in a north-south direction.
Either way, this is one of those photos from Mars orbit that leaves me entirely baffled. The cones and the flow feature that cuts across the middle of the image might be either volcanic or glacial, but it is beyond my pay grade to explain what caused this patch of aligned cones.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, about 500 to 900 miles south of the candidate landing sites for SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft. This region is also south of 30 degrees latitude and is thus in the dry tropics of Mars. We therefore are not looking at glacial flow features, but the frozen flood lava that dominates the plains in this region.
This fact however really explains nothing. In the inset you can see that the east-west flow feature in the center of the picture actually extends in both directions, and appears branch out into many tributaries to the west. However, it is impossble to determine the direction of flow. Though the grade has a slight tilt downhill to the east, that is hardly consistent, and the appearance of the tributaries themselves suggest they were flowing to the west when they were laid down.
Most likely the entire tilt of the landscape has probably changed since this lava was laid down, making it impossible to determine anything about the flow pattern from orbit.
Either way, none of this accounts for the cones. They are possibly frozen burst bubbles of lava, but that doesn’t explain their apparent alignment.
Everyone is free to make their own guesses, though I suspect no real solution will be possible until an actual person is walking this terrain with a rock hammer.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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 original image.
Time for another “What the heck?” cool image! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 23, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the science team labels as “longitudinally aligned cones”.
To my eye the cones visibile in this picture seem more aligned latitudinally, to the east-west, instead of longitudinally, north-south, but the larger view in the inset on the overview map below shows that on a larger scale, the cones do appear aligned in a north-south direction.
Either way, this is one of those photos from Mars orbit that leaves me entirely baffled. The cones and the flow feature that cuts across the middle of the image might be either volcanic or glacial, but it is beyond my pay grade to explain what caused this patch of aligned cones.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, about 500 to 900 miles south of the candidate landing sites for SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft. This region is also south of 30 degrees latitude and is thus in the dry tropics of Mars. We therefore are not looking at glacial flow features, but the frozen flood lava that dominates the plains in this region.
This fact however really explains nothing. In the inset you can see that the east-west flow feature in the center of the picture actually extends in both directions, and appears branch out into many tributaries to the west. However, it is impossble to determine the direction of flow. Though the grade has a slight tilt downhill to the east, that is hardly consistent, and the appearance of the tributaries themselves suggest they were flowing to the west when they were laid down.
Most likely the entire tilt of the landscape has probably changed since this lava was laid down, making it impossible to determine anything about the flow pattern from orbit.
Either way, none of this accounts for the cones. They are possibly frozen burst bubbles of lava, but that doesn’t explain their apparent alignment.
Everyone is free to make their own guesses, though I suspect no real solution will be possible until an actual person is walking this terrain with a rock hammer.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Ejecta trails??? But if you look to the east, apparently nothing there.