Tag: geology

Hubble photographs Comet NEOWISE

12:38 pm

Comet NEOWISE, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope
Click for full image.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have obtained close-up images of Comet NEOWISE after it had survived its closest approach to the Sun. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is one of Hubble’s two images.

Comets often break apart due to thermal and gravitational stresses at such close encounters, but Hubble’s view suggests that NEOWISE’s solid nucleus stayed intact. This heart of the comet is too small to be seen directly by Hubble. The ball of ice may be no more than 4.8 kilometres across. But the Hubble image does captures a portion of the vast cloud of gas and dust enveloping the nucleus, which measures about 18 000 kilometres across in this image.

Hubble’s observation also resolves a pair of jets from the nucleus shooting out in opposite directions. They emerge from the comet’s core as cones of dust and gas, and then are curved into broader fan-like structures by the rotation of the nucleus. Jets are the result of ice sublimating beneath the surface with the resulting dust/gas being squeezed out at high velocity.

Below the fold is a six-second movie made of Hubble’s two images, showing how the jets changed over a three hour time period on August 8th.
» Read more

One comment

Mars: On the floor of Valles Marineris

11:50 am

Strange flow (?) on floor of Valles Marineris
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The image to the right, rotated and cropped to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 14, 2020, and shows a very strange bright outcrop on the floor of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon on both Mars and in the entire solar system.

MRO has photographed this spot a few times since 2007. The first image was posted with a detailed caption by Colin Dundas of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center in Arizona, who described the feature like so:

Most of the material is light and shows many small scarps or benches. In places these appear to indicate boundaries between layers, but they are often discontinuous. The light material is buried by a thin mantle of dark material in places; the dark material is from other rock layers—possibly those above the outcrop—and has fallen or been blown over the light rock.

Near the top of the outcrop, there is a distinctive layer that appears as a dark band at low resolution. At the full resolution of HiRISE, this appears to be a layer breaking up into angular boulders, indicating different rock properties than the underlying light rock. There does appear to be some light material above this layer, suggesting that the process that deposited the light material continued for some time.

Dundas also added that the lighter material is theorized to have “formed by a variety of processes. Proposed deposition mechanisms for light-toned sediments on Mars include those from rivers or lakes, volcanic ash or wind-blown sand or dust.”

Since this lighter colored outcrop has remained as bright as it has now for more than six Martian years, I doubt it is brighter because of the surface deposit of ash, sand, or dust (though it might be made of these materials which have now become hardened). My guess is that the brightness is inherent to the outcrop. Moreover, note the plateau to the southwest. Its rim is cut sharply, suggesting erosion revealed this outcrop, and that the outcrop is made of more resistant material.

The overview map provides some context that also might help explain the geology at this location.
» Read more

2 comments

Movie of OSIRIS-REx’s last rehearsal before sample grab

3:53 pm

Closest point to Nighingale landing site during OSIRIS-REx's last rehearsal
Click image for full movie.

The OSIRIS-REx science team has released a movie made by the spacecraft’s navigation camera during its August 11th final rehearsal prior to the planned sample grab-and-go now set for October.

The image to the right is a capture of one image when the spacecraft was closest to the asteroid, about 131 feet above the surface. The target landing site, dubbed Nightingale, is the somewhat smooth area near the top half of the frame.

These images were captured over a three-hour period – the imaging sequence begins approximately one hour after the orbit departure maneuver and ends approximately two minutes after the back-away burn. In the middle of the sequence, the spacecraft slews, or rotates, so that NavCam 2 looks away from Bennu, toward space. Shortly after, it performs a final slew to point the camera (and the sampling arm) toward the surface again. Near the end of the sequence, site Nightingale comes into view at the top of the frame. The large, tall boulder situated on the crater’s rim (upper left) is 43 feet (13 meters) on its longest axis. The sequence was created using nearly 300 images taken by the spacecraft’s NavCam 2 camera.

Nightingale might be their best choice, but it remains about half the size they had originally wanted for their grab-and-go site, with far too many objects larger than planned. They designed the grab-and-go equipment to catch objects smaller than 0.8 inches. Little at this location, or on the entire surface of Bennu, is that small. The asteroid is truly a pile of gravel, with no dust.

4 comments

Majestic dunes on Mars

11:26 am

Beautiful dunes on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on May 10, 2020, and shows the dune field inside a large unnamed sixty-mile-wide crater in the highlands of Mars.

Scientists have been using MRO to monitor this site to track both dust devils and dune changes since at least 2009. In 2009 the focus was on the numerous dust devil tracks, and in fact I posted in March 2020 a comparison of an earlier image with a more recent picture, showing how the earlier tracks had vanished in recent pictures, probably wiped clean by the global dust storm in 2018.

This time however I am less interested in the science, which I covered in detail in that previous post, but in the beauty of these dunes. They are large and majestic, and the color strip tells us that they exhibit striking colors of green, gold, and tan. Is there a place on Earth with dunes of such colors? If so, it is rare.

Make sure you click on the image to see the full resolution photograph. It is even more breath-taking.

4 comments

Mars: A small volcano at the base of a big volcano

1:31 pm

Volcanic vent near Pavonis Mons
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image is of a recent high resolution image taken on May 30, 2020 by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of what they label as a volcanic vent near Pavonis Mons, the middle giant volcano in the string of three that sit between Olympus Mons, the biggest Martian volcano in the solar system, and Valles Marineris, the biggest canyon in the solar system.

MRO took a previous picture of this vent back in 2010, when they labeled it instead a “small volcano.” Both labels are essentially correct. The two depressions here clearly were a vent for lava at some point in the past. The depressions also fit the definition of a small volcano, as they sit at a high point with two rills flowing down from them. In some ways they could be considered small calderas at the top of a volcano.
» Read more

4 comments

Bottom edge of Martian glacier?

1:53 pm

The foot of an inactive glacier on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image, taken on May 25, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), provides a nice example of the typical foot of an inactive buried glacial flow on Mars. The image to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, focuses on the center of the full image. Uphill is to the right. The glacier’s edge runs down the middle left of the photo.

Scientists call this a lobate flow because its shape resembles a lobe, smooth and rounded as it comes down the slope. Located at 38 degrees south latitude to the east of Hellas Basin and just to the north of one of that basin’s major infeeding canyons, Harmakhis Valles, this flow comes down the west side of a large mountain. The overview map below provides the context, with the white rectangle indicating the photo’s location.
» Read more

Leave a comment

Catastrophes on Mars and Earth

1:32 pm

Big rock break in Kasei Valles
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 13, 2020, and shows what appears to be a giant block that at some point was attached to the cliff, and then broke off and fell away to the north. Subsequent erosion over the later eons widened the break until it now looks like a canyon.

Sounds great, but the event that separated this big piece of mountain, almost a mile across, from its cliffside was possibly even more catastrophic. And it might not have involved a sudden break and fall, but something more spectacular, and also still impossible based on everything we know about Mars.

Uncovering what really happened at this spot on Mars will not only help us understand the geological history of the Red Planet, it could also amazingly enough help illustrate the cultural shifts going on right now on Earth, and how to shift them in a more rational and sane direction.

This image is located near the outlet of Kasei Valles, one of the larger valleys draining downward from the Tharsis Bulge where Mars’ giant volcanoes are located. The overview map below shows us what Kasei Valles looks like in this area.
» Read more

15 comments

Martian sand traps and elongated dunes

9:14 am

Elongated dunes on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the left, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on June 23, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I was attracted by the uncaptioned image’s title, “Elongating Linear Dunes at Meroe Patera.” What are elongating linear dunes?

The photo shows two such dunes, stretching out to the southwest away from the pile of sand that abuts the cliff to the northwest. Unlike most dunes, which usually form and travel in groups, these for some reason form single straight lines extending for some distance.

I contacted the scientist who requested this image, Joel Davis of the Natural History Museum in London, hoping he could answer some questions about these strangely shaped dunes, and discovered that he was studying this exact subject for a paper since published. As noted in the paper’s introduction,
» Read more

3 comments

Ascraeus Mons, Mars’ second highest mountain

3:06 pm

Ascraeus Mons

Today’s cool Mars’ image started out when I came across an interesting image of a depression on the northern flank of the giant Martian volcano Ascraeus Mons, the northernmost of the line of three giant volcanoes just to the east of the biggest of all, Olympus Mons.

To provide context I created an overview showing the entire volcano (with the white rectangle showing the location of the depression image), and suddenly realized that this overview might actually be more interesting to my readers. To the right is that overview of Ascreaus, with a scale across the bottom to indicate the elevation of the mountain above what scientists have determined to be Mars’ pseudo sea level.

Notice that this volcano, the second highest on Mars, rises more than 43,000 feet above the surrounding plains. Its peak is estimated to be about 59,000 feet high, making it taller than Mt. Everest by about 30,000 feet (more than twice its height). Its diameter is approximately 300 miles across, giving it a much steeper profile than the higher but more spread out Olympus Mons. The map below shows this mountain in relation to Olympus as well as its nearby partner volcanoes.
» Read more

2 comments

OSIRIS-REx preps for final rehearsal of sample grab

9:40 am

The OSIRIS-REx science and engineering team is getting ready for its August 11th final rehearsal of the sample grab-and-go at the asteroid Bennu that it plans to do in October.

If the rehearsal goes right, the spacecraft will descend to within 131 feet of the surface of Bennu as it deploys its equipment as if it would continue down to the surface. It will also fly in formation above the Nightingale sample site when it does this, taking the highest resolution images yet of the surface of the asteroid.

It will then back off, returning to its home orbit farther from Bennu. Engineers will then review what happened, and use that data to prepare for the actual sample grab-and-go, set for October 20, 2020.

3 comments

Slushy floor of southern Martian crater?

1:45 pm

Knobby floor of southern crater
Click for full image.

The cool image to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, shows the northwest section of the floor of a crater in the southern cratered highlands of Mars, in a mountainous region dubbed Claritus Fossae, located south of Valles Marineris. The photo was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 14, 2020.

The entire crater floor appears to be covered by these strings of closely-packed knobs, reminiscent of the brain terrain found in the mid-latitude glacial regions of Mars and thought to be the result of underground ice sublimating upward.

Below is the area in the white box, in full resolution.
» Read more

Leave a comment

Filled and distorted craters on Mars

9:12 pm

A very distorted and filled crater on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated and cropped to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 25, 2020. The entire image was dubbed “Cluster of Filled Craters”, but I decided to highlight the crater of the cluster that was most strangely distorted of them all. The material that fills all the craters in the full image is almost certainly buried ice and is dubbed concentric crater fill by scientists.

This crater is located in the northern lowland plains the mid-latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees, where planetary scientists have found ample evidence of many such filled craters and glaciers.

Not only does the crater’s interior seemed filled with glacial material, its distorted rim suggests that it has been reshaped by glacial activity that might have covered it entirely over the eons as the mid-latitude glaciers of Mars waxed and waned with the extreme shifts that happen regularly to Mars’ rotational tilt. Moreover, there is strong evidence that in these lowland northern plains an underground ice table exists close to the surface, allowing for more distortion over time.

The overview map below provides some location context.
» Read more

5 comments

Scientists make first rough estimate of Mars’ internal structure

3:33 pm

Artist's cutaway showing theorized Martian interior
Artist’s cutaway of theorized Martian interior

Using data from InSight’s seismometer, scientists have made their first approximation of the internal structure of Mars.

The first boundary Deng and Levander measured is the divide between Mars’ crust and mantle almost 22 miles (35 kilometers) beneath the lander.

The second is a transition zone within the mantle where magnesium iron silicates undergo a geochemical change. Above the zone, the elements form a mineral called olivine, and beneath it, heat and pressure compress them into a new mineral called wadsleyite. Known as the olivine-wadsleyite transition, this zone was found 690-727 miles (1,110-1,170 kilometers) beneath InSight. “The temperature at the olivine-wadsleyite transition is an important key to building thermal models of Mars,” Deng said. “From the depth of the transition, we can easily calculate the pressure, and with that, we can derive the temperature.”

The third boundary he and Levander measured is the border between Mars’ mantle and its iron-rich core, which they found about 945-994 miles (1,520-1,600 kilometers) beneath the lander. Better understanding this boundary “can provide information about the planet’s development from both a chemical and thermal point of view,” Deng said.

Because they only have one seismometer on the planet, this approximation has a great deal of uncertainty. Only when we have multiple such seismic instruments, scattered across the entire Martian globe, will scientists be able to hone their models more accurate of the planet’s interior.

2 comments

The dry barren plains of Tyrrhena Terra

12:20 pm

Tyrrhena Terra badlands
Click for full image.

In a sense today’s cool image is a replay of one I posted in March, showing the dry barren terrain in the vast rough cratered highlands of Tyrrhena Terra, located along the equator of Mars between the giant basins of Isidis and Hellas.

Today’s image on the right, cropped to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 26, 2020, and shows well the barrenness of this region. The surface appears quite solid, like bedrock, rather than the squishy soft surface of the northern lowland plains. Moreover, there is a lot of dust trapped in the low areas between the ridges, forming ripples that new data suggest move slowly across the surface. If you click on the full image, you will see that this terrain is far from local, and goes on in this manner for quite a distance in all directions.

This is a dry and forbidding place, about the size of the American southwest, from Texas to California.

The overview map below provides some context of Tyrrhena Terra’s location on Mars.
» Read more

Leave a comment

Study: Mars’ meandering canyons formed under ice

9:23 am

A new study comparing Mars’ meandering canyons with those found in the Arctic regions on Earth suggests that the Martian valleys were formed by water melting under large ice sheets, not flowing water on the surface.

A large number of the valley networks scarring the surface of Mars were carved by water melting beneath glacial ice, not by free-flowing rivers as previously thought, according to new research published in Nature Geoscience. The findings effectively throw cold water on the dominant “warm and wet ancient Mars” hypothesis, which postulates that rivers, rainfall and oceans once existed on the red planet.

To reach this conclusion, lead author and postdoctoral research scholar Anna Grau Galofre of Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration developed and used new techniques to examine thousands of Martian valleys. She and her co-authors also compared the Martian valleys to the subglacial channels in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and uncovered striking similarities. The western edge of the Devon ice cap on the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

I have noted previously on Behind the Black my sense that the planetary science community was beginning to shift away from the hypothesis of flowing liquid surface water on Mars as an explanation for the planet’s riverlike and oceanlike features to some form or ice/glacial activity. For a half century the scientists have tried and failed to come up with some scenario that could allow water to flow on the surface in Mars’ cold climate and thin atmosphere.

Ice or glacial activity rather than flowing liquid water might solve this problem, and today’s paper is a push in this direction.

3 comments

Glacier country on Mars

12:47 pm

Glacial flow in Protonilus Mensae
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on May 24, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and provides a wonderful example of the kind of evidence of buried glaciers found extensively in the mid-latitudes of Mars.

This particular region, called Protonilus Mensae, is a region of chaos terrain at the transition zone between the southern cratered highlands and the northern lowland plains. I have featured a number of cool images in Protonilus, all of which show some form of buried glacial flow, now inactive.

The last cool image above was one that the MRO science team had picked to illustrate how to spot a glacier on Mars.

In this particular image are several obvious glacier features. First, we can see a series of moraines at the foot of each glacier in the photo, each moraine indicating the farthest extent of the glacier when it was active and growing. It also appears that there are two major layers of buried ice, the younger-smaller layer near the image’s bottom and sitting on top of a larger more extensive glacier flow sheet. This suggests that there was more ice in the past here, and with each succeeding ice age the glaciers grew less extensive.

Second, at the edges of the flows can be seen parallel ridges, suggestive also of repeated flows, each pushing to the side a new layer of debris.

Third, the interior of the glacier has parallel fractures in many places, similar to what is seen on Earth glaciers.

Protonilus Mensae, as well as the neighboring chaos regions Deuteronilus to the west and Nilosyrtis to the east, could very well be called Mars’ glacier country. Do a search on Behind the Black for all three regions and you will come up with numerous images showing glacial features.

Below is an overview of Protonilus, the red box showing the location of this image. Also highlighted by number are the locations of the three features previously posted and listed above.
» Read more

Leave a comment

Martian eroding ridges amid brain terrain

12:09 pm

Brain terrain and bisected ridges on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s very cool image is cool because of how inexplicable it is. To the right, cropped to post here, is a photo taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of an area of what they call “Ribbed Terrain and Brain Terrain”.

I call it baffling.

Nor am I alone. At the moment the processes that create brain terrain (the undulations between the ridges) remain a complete mystery. There are theories, all relating to ice sublimating into gas, but none really explains the overall look of this terrain.

Making this geology even more baffling are the larger ridges surrounding the brain terrain, all of which appear to have depressions along their crests. Here too some form of sublimation process appears involved, but the details remain somewhat mysterious.
» Read more

One comment

Rover update: Curiosity pauses to drill

11:27 am

Curiosity's entire journey so far in Gale Crater

Overview map of Curiosity's recent travels

The artist’s oblique drawing above, as well as the map to the right, provide some context as to Curiosity’s present location and its entire journey in Gale Crater. For the overall context of Curiosity’s travels, see my March 2016 post, Pinpointing Curiosity’s location in Gale Crater. For all rover updates since then through May 2020, go here.

Since my last update on July 7, 2020, Curiosity has quickly moved a considerable distance to the east, as planned, skirting the large sand field to the south in its journey to the best path upward onto Mt. Sharp. The science team however has detoured away from their planned route, shown in red on the map, heading downhill a bit in order to find one last good location in the clay unit to drill. They are at that location now and are presently scouting for the best drilling spot.

About a week ago, before heading downhill, they had stopped to take a set of new images of Curiosity’s wheels. » Read more

3 comments

Tianwen-1 launch set for July 23rd

3:09 pm

China has rolled out its Long March 5 rocket and is now preparing to launch its Tianwen-1 orbiter/lander/rover to Mars this coming Thursday, July 23rd, some time between 12 am and 3 am (Eastern).

A Long March 5 rocket is set for liftoff with China’s Tianwen 1 mission some time between 12 a.m. and 3 a.m. EDT (0400-0700 GMT) Thursday, according to public notices warning ships to steer clear of downrange drop zones along the launcher’s flight path.

Chinese officials have not officially publicized the launch date. Chinese state media outlets have only reported the launch is scheduled for late July or early August, and officials have not confirmed whether the launch will be broadcast live on state television.

This will be the first operational launch of the Long March 5, which has had three previous test launches, with the first two failing. The success of the December launch, as well as the May success of the related Long March 5B, made this Mars mission possible.

After achieving orbit in February 2021 and spending two months scouting the landing site, the lander will descend to the surface, bringing the rover with it. The prime landing site is Utopia Planitia, in the northern lowland plains.

6 comments

Active volcanoes on Venus?

9:25 am

Using computer models and past radar images from orbiters, scientists now believe that Venus could have as many as 37 active volcanoes.

The type of feature on Venus they think might still be active is called a coronae, circular features detected by radar and distinct to this planet that have been thought to be inactive ancient volcanic features.

In the new study, the researchers used numerical models of thermo-mechanic activity beneath the surface of Venus to create high-resolution, 3D simulations of coronae formation. Their simulations provide a more detailed view of the process than ever before.

The results helped Montési and his colleagues identify features that are present only in recently active coronae. The team was then able to match those features to those observed on the surface of Venus, revealing that some of the variation in coronae across the planet represents different stages of geological development. The study provides the first evidence that coronae on Venus are still evolving, indicating that the interior of the planet is still churning.

Lots of uncertainty here, but nonetheless this is good science. It also reinforces other evidence in recent years that has suggested active volcanism on Venus.

One comment

More polygons on Mars!

2:21 pm

Lava polygons on Mars?
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image, rotated, cropped, and contrast-enhanced to post here, focuses on polygons found near the equator of Mars. It was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 22, 2020, and shows what the science team labels as “well-preserved polygons.”

Previously I have posted cool images showing polygons (here and here), but those images were located in the northern mid-latitudes, and were thought to have been formed in connection with some form of freeze-melt-drying water process in permafrost.

Today’s image however is likely not related to water. It is located in the equatorial regions, where little water is expected. It also has a more permanent nature, which suggests that it is the result of some sort of volcanic or tectonic process. That the polygons are depressions suggests the latter, since a volcanic process is more likely to have filled cracks and left ridges more resistant to erosion, as explained by this article.

In this case the topography suggests instead some form of spreading and cracking process that left behind these polygon-shaped cracks. In mud, such polygons are found when the mud dries, but once again, these are in a very dry region. If formed in that manner they must have formed a very very long time ago, when the climate here was very different, and were somehow preserved for eons since.

The location, as shown in the overview map below provides some context, though it really doesn’t answer any questions..
» Read more

Leave a comment

Launch update on Mars missions

9:24 am

The launch status of the three missions to Mars:

First, the launch of UAE’s Hope orbiter by Mitsubishi’s H-2A rocket has been pushed back to July 20th due to bad weather. Their launch window extends to August 3rd, so they still have two weeks before it closes.

Second, China has rolled to the launchpad the Long March 5 rocket, with the Tienwen-1 orbiter/lander/rover. Though they have only said that the launch will occur between July 20th and July 25th, based on past operations, they usually launch six days after roll-out, putting the launch date as July 23.

China has also provided some clarity as to Tienwen-1’s landing site on Mars. According to this Nature Astronomy paper [pdf], published on July 13th, their primary landing site is in the northern lowland plains of Utopia Planitia. The Tienwen-1 science team has also considered [pdf] the northern lowland plains in Chryse Planitia, on the other side of Mars.

Since they will spend two to three months in Mars orbit before sending the lander and rover to the surface, it could very well be that they won’t make a final decision until they get into orbit.

Finally, on July 7th Perseverance was mounted on top of its Atlas-5 rocket for its July 30th launch. Its launch window closes on August 15.

6 comments

Seismic signal from recent Martian impact detected by InSight?

11:54 pm

According to a science paper released today, a small impact that occurred about 25 miles south from the InSight lander between February 21st and April 6, 2019 might have been detected by the spacecraft’s seismometer.

From the paper’s abstract:

During this time period, three seismic events were identified in InSight data. We derive expected seismic signal characteristics and use them to evaluate each of the seismic events. However, none of them can definitively be associated with this source. Atmospheric perturbations are generally expected to be generated during impacts; however, in this case, no signal could be identified as related to the known impact. Using scaling relationships based on the terrestrial and lunar analogs and numerical modeling, we predict the amplitude, peak frequency, and duration of the seismic signal that would have emanated from this impact. The predicted amplitude falls near the lowest levels of the measured seismometer noise for the predicted frequency. Hence it is not surprising this impact event was not positively identified in the seismic data.

Based on this data, they now think they will only be able to detect about two impacts per year with InSight’s seismometer, a decrease from the previous estimate of as many as ten.

4 comments

Martian acne?

2:48 pm

Acne on Mars?
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, shows what the scientists from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) label “fretted terrain.” In an earlier post describing evidence found by Europe’s Mars Express orbiter of glaciers in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars, fretted terrain was described as follows:

As is common with fretted terrain, it contains a mix of cliffs, canyons, scarps, steep-sided and flat-topped mounds (mesa), furrows, fractured ridges and more, a selection of which can be seen dotted across the frame.

These features were created as flowing material dissected the area, cutting through the existing landscape and carving out a web of winding channels. In the case of Deuteronilus Mensae, flowing ice is the most likely culprit. Scientists believe that this terrain has experienced extensive past glacial activity across numerous martian epochs.

In that case the fretted terrain was in the transition zone between the northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands, and actually resembled chaos terrain. What we see here looks far different, a surface that resembles the bubbly surface of a vat of thick molten stew.

This image is also deep in the cratered southern highlands, though still in the mid-latitudes at 41 degrees south latitude. While the presence of ice close to the surface is possible at this latitude and could definitely explain what this image shows, it would be a big mistake to accept this explanation without skepticism. A lot is going on here, and much of it suggests volcanic-type processes. The volcanoes might have been spewing mud or ice instead of molten lava, but then again, all is uncertain.

What is certain is that I can’t help thinking of the pock-marked skin of an adolescent teenager when I look at this photo. And for all we know, the processes that produce both surfaces could be in many ways similar.

Leave a comment

Monument Valley on Mars

12:58 pm

Monument Valley on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image is located near the Martian equator, in the middle of Arabia Terra, the most extensive region of the transition zone between the low northern plains and the southern cratered highlands. Taken on May 9, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and cropped to post here, the photo shows some layered mesas surrounded by a terraced and scalloped terrain with dust filling the low spots.

This is likely to be a very dry place on Mars. At only 2 degrees north of the equator, the evidence so far suggests that if there is a buried ice table (like the water table on Earth), it will be much deeper than at higher latitudes. The terrain reflects this, looking reminiscent of Monument Valley in the American southwest. In fact, the satellite image below, which I grabbed from MapQuest, shows a typical mesa in Monument Valley.
» Read more

6 comments

Martian swirls and curlicues

2:51 pm

glacial features in depression on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is a great example of how a well known geological process on Earth, glaciers, can form features on Mars that appear most inexplicable.

The image was taken on May 13, 2020 and highlights the geology found in a depression, likely an eroded crater, on the northwest flanks of one of Mars’ largest basins, Argyre Planitia, located in the planet’s southern cratered highlands. The basin is thought to have been formed by a giant impact during the Late Heavy Bombardment around 3.9 billion years ago, when the inner terrestrial planets were sweeping up the last remnants of the Sun’s accretion disk, with that process causing the many craters we see on the Moon, Mercury, and Mars

This particular depression is at 41 degrees south latitude, in the mid-latitudes where scientists have found much evidence of buried glaciers. This is likely what we are looking at here. The section I’ve cropped has a dip to the south, which somewhat fits these flow features. If you look at the full image, you will see comparably weird flow features south of this section, flowing downhill in the opposite direction, to the north.

The problem is that not all the features fit the direction of flow, or any flow at all. I suspect we are seeing evidence of the waxing and waning of glaciers over this terrain over many eons. Disentangling that history however is confounding, especially when we are limited to only studying such objects from orbit.

I must also add that this image was labeled by the MRO science team a “terrain sample,” which means it wasn’t specifically requested by any scientist studying this geology. Instead, they needed to take an image to maintain the spacecraft’s camera temperature, and picked this spot for that snapshot. Their choice wasn’t random, but it also wasn’t based on any focused research.

5 comments

A great hike to do on Mars!

1:10 pm

Knife Mesa at the exit from Kasei Valles
Click for full image.

Time to take a cool image and go sight-seeing. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 25, 2020, and shows a spectacular knife-edge mesa, its cliffs more than 650 feet high on either side.

This knife mesa sits among a bunch of similar mesas, and appears to be in a region that could be called chaos terrain, formed by flowing water or ice along faults, cutting criss-crossing canyons with mesas between.

This mesa points east out from the Kasei Valley, the second largest canyon draining out from the Tharsis Bulge that contains Mars’ largest volcanoes. The overview map below provides some context, with the white cross indicating the location of today’s cool image.
» Read more

15 comments

Midnight repost: Mars!

11:59 pm

The tenth anniversary retrospective of Behind the Black continues: Despite my many essays on culture and politics, Behind the Black remains mostly a site reporting on space and science. Since the modern exploration of Mars is probably the most significant on-going event now in space, it seemed unsatisfactory to only repost one or two of my past articles on this subject, when I have probably have posted hundreds. Instead, this midnight repost will provide links to a bunch, divided into several topics.

Martian geology, shown in cool images

First, we have the many cool images I have posted on Mars, often tied to detailed descriptions of what scientists are now beginning to learn about the red planet’s mysterious geological history. The following are the most important, and will help readers better understand future cool images.

Future colonization

Next, two posts, both focused on the future exploration and colonization of Mars.
» Read more

Leave a comment

Spring at the Martian South Pole

1:10 pm

Geysers on Mars?
Click for full image.

Geysers on Mars
Click for full image.

It is now full spring at the Martian south pole, and as should be expected much has been happening there. Like the Martian north pole, when sunlight arrives after the dark winter it hits the seasonally-placed mantle or cap of carbon dioxide snow and begins to melt it, in the alien ways things like this occur on Mars.

The two images to the right illustrate this process for one particular place located in what are called the south polar layered deposits. The two images, just released on July 1, 2020 from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and taken on May 14 and May 30 respectively, had immediately caught my attention because they were labeled “Active Geyser Locale Dubbed Macclesfield.” Active geysers?! I immediately contacted Candy Hansen of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, whom I correctly guessed had requested these photos. She explained,

The name for this site is of course informal, and it dates back to when I first started picking sites to monitor. I was so certain we would see active geysers here! We see their deposits, the fans on the surface, but so far we have not caught an actual eruption in progress.

The overview map of the south pole below provides some context.
» Read more

5 comments
1 … 40 41 42 43 44 … 60