A drainage channel on Mars
Click for full image.
Today’s cool image from Mars highlights what is probably the biggest geological conundrum the red planet presents for planetary scientists. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on February 1, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Though I have cropped it, I have cropped out very little, because the entire meandering drainage valley is its most interesting feature, and that takes up almost the entire image.
The photo was simply labeled by the camera team a “terrain sample northwest of Sytinskaya Crater”, so I suspect this was taken not in connection with any specific research but because they must use the camera at a regular intervals to maintain its temperature, and when they have gaps in their schedule they try to pick spots of interest in areas that have not had many high resolution photos taken. In this case however I suspect the location choice was very far from random, as they clearly wanted to capture this drainage system, in its entirety.
I called this merely a drainage channel without indicating what caused the channel, be it liquid water, ice, or wind, because in this case that is a main question. At first glance an Earthman will immediately suspect water, which is what scientists supposed for the last half century. The problem with that conclusion is that the Martian atmosphere is too cold and thin for liquid water to exist on its surface, and though there seems to be plenty of evidence that liquid water once existed there, no scientist has yet come up with a completely accepted climate model that allows for such conditions in anytime in Mars’ past.
The rover Opportunity found that some channels it explored might have been carved by wind, though to our human eyes it seems unlikely that a meandering tributary system such as this could have been carved by wind. The possibility however must not be dismissed out of hand, since Mars is an alien planet and alien things (to Earth) happen there.
The overview map below might provide some context.
» Read more
Click for full image.
Today’s cool image from Mars highlights what is probably the biggest geological conundrum the red planet presents for planetary scientists. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on February 1, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Though I have cropped it, I have cropped out very little, because the entire meandering drainage valley is its most interesting feature, and that takes up almost the entire image.
The photo was simply labeled by the camera team a “terrain sample northwest of Sytinskaya Crater”, so I suspect this was taken not in connection with any specific research but because they must use the camera at a regular intervals to maintain its temperature, and when they have gaps in their schedule they try to pick spots of interest in areas that have not had many high resolution photos taken. In this case however I suspect the location choice was very far from random, as they clearly wanted to capture this drainage system, in its entirety.
I called this merely a drainage channel without indicating what caused the channel, be it liquid water, ice, or wind, because in this case that is a main question. At first glance an Earthman will immediately suspect water, which is what scientists supposed for the last half century. The problem with that conclusion is that the Martian atmosphere is too cold and thin for liquid water to exist on its surface, and though there seems to be plenty of evidence that liquid water once existed there, no scientist has yet come up with a completely accepted climate model that allows for such conditions in anytime in Mars’ past.
The rover Opportunity found that some channels it explored might have been carved by wind, though to our human eyes it seems unlikely that a meandering tributary system such as this could have been carved by wind. The possibility however must not be dismissed out of hand, since Mars is an alien planet and alien things (to Earth) happen there.
The overview map below might provide some context.
» Read more
