Another “What the heck?!” image on Mars

Another
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 2, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The scientists label this “Monitoring Irregular Terrains in Western Arabia Terra.” I label it more bluntly as another one of MRO’s “What the heck?!” images. For all I know, this is nothing more than a discarded Vincent Van Gogh painting, thrown out because even he couldn’t figure out what he was painting.

The best guess I can make, just from the picture alone, is that some of the dark spots are vents from which the white stuff vented at some point, either as small lava or mud volcanoes. As the location is close to the equator, near surface ice is almost certainly not a factor in what we see.

In any case there is no way to reasonably decipher this picture, just by looking at the picture. It is necessary to take a wider view.
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Terraces within one of Mars’ giant enclosed chasms

Overview map

Terraces within Hebes Chasma

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 27, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the terraced layers descending down a 7,000-foot-high ridgeline within Hebes Chasma, one of several enclosed chasms that are found to the north of Mars’s largest canyon system, Valles Marineris.

The white dot on the overview map above marks this location, inside Hebes. The rectangle in the inset indicates the area covered by the picture, which only covers the lower 5,000 feet of this ridge’s southern flank.

The ridgeline might be 7,000 feet high and sixteen miles long, but it is dwarfed by the scale of the chasm within which it sits. From the rim to the floor of Hebes is a 23,000 foot drop, comparable to the general heights of the Himalaya Mountains. Furthermore, this ridge is not the highest peak within Hebes. To the west is the much larger mesa dubbed Hebes Mensa, 11,000 feet high and 55 miles long.

The terraces indicate the cyclical and complex geological history of Mars. Each probably represents a major volcanic eruption, laying down a new bed of flood lava. With time, something caused Hebes Chasm to get excavated, exposing this ridge and these layers.

The excavation process itself remains unclear. Some scientists think the entire Valles Marineris canyon was created by catastrophic floods of liquid water. Others posit the possibility of underground ice aquifers that sublimated away, causing the surface to sink, eroded further by wind. Neither theory is proven, though the former is generally favored by scientists.

Another example of the weird taffy terrain in Mars’ death valley

More taffy terrain

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on January 30, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The scientists label it dimply as “layers in Helles Planitia.” Other scientists have given this strange landscape a much more interesting label, “taffy terrain.” It is found only in the Hellas Basin, the basement of Mars, having the lowest elevation found anywhere on the red planet. According to a 2014 paper, the scientists posit that this material must be some sort of “a viscous fluid,” naturally flowing downward into “localized depressions.” Because of its weird nature I have posted many cool images of it in the past (see here, here, here, here, and here).

Is taffy terrain still viscous, or has it become solidified? That question I think remains unanswered, though pictures taken of the same spot over time do not yet appear to show changes.
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Airbus wins contract to build lander for Europe’s long delayed ExoMars Franklin rover

Low resolution cropped section of map
Geology map for Franklin landing site. Click for
original image. Click here for original article.

The European Space Agency (ESA) late yesterday announced that it has awarded Airbus a $194 million contract to build the lander that will place Europe’s long delayed ExoMars Franklin rover on the Martian surface, replacing the Russian lander that became unavailable when the ESA/Russian partnership ended after Russia invaded the Ukraine in 2022.

Airbus announced late March 28 (Eastern time) that it was selected by ESA and Thales Alenia Space, the prime contractor for the mission, to build the landing platform for that rover mission, scheduled to launch in 2028.

The landing platform is the part of the ExoMars spacecraft that handles the final phases of its descent to the Martian surface in 2030, including performing the final landing burn. After landing, the platform will deploy ramps to allow the ExoMars rover, named Rosalind Franklin, to roll onto the Martian surface.

This project was first begun in the early 2010s, with a launch date targeting 2018. Initially a partnership between ESA and NASA, Obama canceled all American participation in 2012. Russia picked up the slack, but then the mission had numerous technical problems that caused it to miss first that 2018 launch window, and then 2020 window as well. Then, just months before launch in 2022, Russia invaded the Ukraine, resulting in Europe ending all its partnership deals with Russia.

The mission is now working to launch in the 2028 window. We shall see if it can meet that date.

Martian stucco

Martian stucco
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 24, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research request but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

In this case the camera team got something quite intriguing. The entire terrain is reminiscent of stucco found on the outside walls of southwest homes. What makes even more intriguing is that the stucco appears to be material that has covered the terrain, based on the two craters that appear half-buried by it. Moreover, this picture only captures a small portion of this landscape, which extends like this over an area approximately 40 miles squared.

What caused this strange terrain? As always, the overview map below provides a clue, though no firm answers.
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Scientists believe they have found evidence of largest carbon molecules yet in Curiosity drill sample

The uncertainty of science: Scientists analyzing material drilled out by the Mars rover Curiosity back in 2013 now believe the sample included the largest carbon molecules yet found on Mars.

The detection of these long and large carbon molecules was based not on actual Martian data, taken at a site dubbed Cumberland on the floor of Gale Crater, but on follow-up lab work on Earth.

The recent organic compounds discovery was a side effect of an unrelated experiment to probe Cumberland for signs of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. After heating the sample twice in [the Curiosity] SAM’s oven and then measuring the mass of the molecules released, the team saw no evidence of amino acids. But they noticed that the sample released small amounts of decane, undecane, and dodecane [thought to be fragments of fatty acids].

Because these compounds could have broken off from larger molecules during heating, scientists worked backward to figure out what structures they may have come from. They hypothesized these molecules were remnants of the fatty acids undecanoic acid, dodecanoic acid, and tridecanoic acid, respectively.

The scientists tested their prediction in the lab, mixing undecanoic acid into a Mars-like clay and conducting a SAM-like experiment. After being heated, the undecanoic acid released decane, as predicted. The researchers then referenced experiments already published by other scientists to show that the undecane could have broken off from dodecanoic acid and dodecane from tridecanoic acid.

Based on this Earth lab work, the scientists now suggest that Mars could also have these much longer carbon molecules that are associated with biological processes.

Very intriguing, but we must exercise caution. Curiosity did not detect such molecules, only evidence that they might exist on Mars. And even if they do exist on Mars, this is not evidence that Mars has or once had biological life. While such large molecules on Earth are usually associated with biological processes, they do not have to be, as the scientists readily admit in their abstract. Furthermore, in the alien environment of Mars there could be many non-biological processes we don’t even yet understand that could explain their existence.

Perseverance spots a rock made of many tiny spherules

Rock made of spherules found by Perseverance
Click for wide shot. The original of the inset
can be found here.

In their exploration of the outer flanks of the rim of Jezero Crater, the science team operating the Perseverance rover have discovered an unusual rock different than everything around it, appearing to be made of many very tiny spherules.

The picture to the right illustrates this. The wider picture was taken by Perseverance’s left high resolution camera, with the inset a close-up mosaic of three images taken by the rover’s micro-imager, designed to get very very high resolution pictures of small objects. From the press release:

The rock, named “St. Pauls Bay” by the team, appeared to be comprised of hundreds of millimeter-sized, dark gray spheres. Some of these occurred as more elongate, elliptical shapes, while others possessed angular edges, perhaps representing broken spherule fragments. Some spheres even possessed tiny pinholes! What quirk of geology could produce these strange shapes?

This isn’t the first time strange spheres have been spotted on Mars. In 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity spotted so-called, “Martian Blueberries” at Meridiani Planum, and since then, the Curiosity rover has observed spherules in the rocks of Yellowknife Bay at Gale crater. Just a few months ago, Perseverance itself also spied popcorn-like textures in sedimentary rocks exposed in the Jezero crater inlet channel, Neretva Vallis. In each of these cases, the spherules were interpreted as concretions, features that formed by interaction with groundwater circulating through pore spaces in the rock.

Not all spherules form this way, however. They also form on Earth by rapid cooling of molten rock droplets formed in a volcanic eruption, for instance, or by the condensation of rock vaporized by a meteorite impact.

At the moment the science team has no idea which of these theories explains the spherules. That the rock is located on the crater rim, where ejecta from the impact will be found, strongly suggests the impact was the cause, not groundwater flow.

High ridge down the center of a big Martian crack

High ridge down the middle of a Martian canyon
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 27, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

Whenever the camera team needs to do this, they try to find an interesting object to photograph, and often succeed. In this case they focused on the geology to the right. I suspect that at first glance my readers will have trouble deciphering what they are looking at. Let me elucidate: This this a 2.5-mile-wide canyon, about 1,000 feet deep, that is bisected by a ridge about 500 feet high.

On the sunlight walls of this canyon you can see boulders and debris, with material gathered on the canyon floor. The smoothness of the floor suggests also that a lot of Martian dust, likely volcanic ash, has become trapped there over the eons.
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Curiosity’s newest view from the heights

Mars in its glorious barrenness
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above, cropped slightly to post here, was taken today by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity. It looks north from the rover’s present location on the flank of Mount Sharp, with the rim of Gale Crater in the far distance about 20 to 30 miles away. Curiosity now sits about 3,000 feet above the floor of the crater.

The blue dot on the overview map to the right marks the rover’s position at this time. The yellow lines indicate the approximate view of the panorama. As with all of the images from both Curiosity and Perseverance, the main impression is a barren and lifeless landscape of incredible stark beauty.

It is now very evident that the Curiosity science team has made the decision to abandon their original route to the west. Instead, they have decided to strike south up into this canyon because it provides them the easiest and fastest route to the boxwork geology to the southwest. It also has them climbing into new geological layers rather than descending into layers that the rover has already seen.

The next time someone tells you Mars lacks water, show them this picture

Lots of near surface ice on Mars
Click for original image.

In the past decade orbital images from Mars have shown unequivocally that the Red Planet is not the dry desert imagined by sci-fi writers for many decades prior to the space age. Nor is it the dry desert that planetary scientists had first concluded based on the first few decades of planetary missions there.

No, what the orbiters Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Express have clearly shown is that, except for the planet’s equatorial regions below 30 degrees latitude, the Martian surface is almost entirely covered by water ice, though it is almost always buried by a thin layer of protective dust and debris. Getting to that ice will be somewhat trivial, however, as it is almost always near the surface.

The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is a perfect example. It was taken on January 31, 2025 by the high resolution camera on MRO. At the top it shows part of a small glacial-filled crater surrounded by blobby ground clearly impregnated with ice. That crater in turn sits on the rim of a much larger very-eroded ancient 53-mile-wide crater whose floor, also filled with glacial debris, can be seen at the bottom of this picture. The wavy ridge line at the base of the rim appears to be a moraine formed by the ebb and flow of the glacial ice that fills this larger crater.

None of these glacial features is particularly unique on Mars. I have been documenting their presence now at Behind the Black for more than six years. Yet, I find still that most news organizations — including many in the space community — remain utterly unaware of these revelations. Any new NASA or university press release that mentions the near-surface ice that covers about two-thirds of the planet’s surface results in news stories claiming “Water has been found on Mars!”, as if this is a shocking new fact from a place where little water is found.

It is very shameful that so many reporters and news organizations are so far out of touch with the actual state of the research on Mars.
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Europe’s Hera asteroid probe sends back data from Mars fly-by

Deimos and Mars as seen by Hera
Click to see full movie.

The European Space Agency (ESA) Hera probe, on its way to study the Didymos/Dimorphos asteroid binary, has successfully sent back images and data obtained during its close-by of Mars yesterday.

The infrared image to the right, a screen capture from a short movie assembled from Hera’s first images, shows the Martian moon Deimos with Mars in the background. The mission scientists have compiled all of these first images taken by Hera to create a short movie, that I have embedded below. From the movie’s caption:

The car-sized Hera spacecraft was about 1000 km away from Deimos as these images were acquired. Deimos orbits approximately 23 500 km from the surface of Mars and is tidally locked, so that this side of the moon is rarely seen. Hera’s TIRI – supplied to the mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA – sees in mid-infrared spectral bands to chart surface temperature. Because Deimos lacks an atmosphere, the side of the moon being illuminated by the Sun is considerably warmer than the planet beneath it.

Although it appears as if Deimos is passing in front of Mars from south to north, the image was actually taken as Hera passed very close to Deimos from north to south at high speed.

Deimos appears brighter than Mars. This means that the surface of airless Deimos is hotter than the surface of Mars. The material covering the surface of Deimos has low reflectivity and is pitch black. This allows it to absorb sunlight well and become hotter. In contrast, the surface of Mars is highly reflective, and its atmosphere transports heat from the warm daytime side to the cooler nighttime side. This is why there is a large temperature difference between Mars and Deimos.

These infrared images also tell us the excellent quality of the camera. Note how detailed the features are on the Martian surface. When Hera gets to Didymos/Dimorphos in December 2026 it is going to be able to document those two asteroids in remarkable detail, including the results of the Dart impact on Dimorphos in September 2022.
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Graceful isolated dunes at the edge of the sea of dunes that surrounds Mars’ north ice cap

Graceful isolated dunes on the edge of the dune sea that surrounds Mars' north pole
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 29, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have also rotated it so north is up. Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research request but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

In this case the timing allowed the camera team to capture this breath-taking picture of these graceful arching dunes sitting in what is likely the near-surface ice sheet that covers much of the red planet’s high latitudes. That sheet is not pure ice, but a complex mixture of ice, dirt, dust, and sand, covered during the winter by a thin mantle of dry ice.

The isolated dunes appear to be ridges sticking up from that flat terrain, but this impression is probably incorrect, based on the location.
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Europe’s Hera probe to fly past Mars tomorrow

As part of its journey to the binary asteroid Didymos/Dimorphos, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera probe will slingshot past Mars tomorrow, obtaining images and data of both the red planet and its moon Deimos.

Three instruments will gather data, a navigational camera, and infrared camera, and a spectral camera, with the goal mostly to calibrate the instruments and make sure they are working as designed. The data won’t be available until the next day, when the ESA will hold a webcast unveiling the images.

Europa Clipper completes Mars fly-by

Data from Europa Clipper has now confirmed that its March 1, 2025 Mars fly-by was successful, putting it on the right trajectory to do a fly-by of Earth in December 2026.

When Europa Clipper launched, navigators deliberately aimed a little away from Mars to avoid any possibility of a launch error turning into a Mars impact. Since then, they’ve performed three deep-space trajectory correction maneuvers to line up for the encounter. Europa Clipper whizzed by Mars at 17:57 UT, only 2 km away from the target height of 884 km. A final maneuver, planned for March 17th, will correct any residual trajectory error.

Only two instruments were activated, mostly as tests to see if they were operating properly. Though the data has not yet been downloaded back to Earth, engineers say that it appears all worked as expected.

If the Earth fly-by in 2026 is successful, Europa Clipper will rendezvous with Jupiter in April 2030, entering an orbit that will fly past Europa numerous times.

Perseverance looks to the far west

Panorama taken by Perservance, February 28, 2025
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above, rotated, cropped, and enhanced to post here, was taken today by the left navigation camera on the Mars rover Perseverance. It gives us the first really good high elevation view of the mountainous terrain to the west of Jezero Crater

The overview map to the right provides the context. The blue dot marks the rover’s present position, with the white dotted line its past travels and the red dotted line its future planned route. The yellow lines are my approximate guess as to the area covered by the panorama above.

Neither the rover team nor the team running Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) that provides the high resolution images of this region have as yet updated the interactive map to show this western region in high resolution. My guess as to why is that the planned route is not yet heading that way (as indicated by the red dotted line). When Perseverance has finished its exploration of the outer slopes of the rim of Jezero Crater and heads west, this fuzzy area on this map will likely be replaced with high resolution data, similar to the rest of the map.

Nonetheless, if you look close, you can distinguish several geological features seen in the panorama, such as the large crater to the right and the ridge line to the left. Beyond are mountain chains and valleys, as well as many additional craters. This is truly a barren and alien place, though it has enormous potential for eventually becoming a friendlier environment.

All that is required is for humans to live there, with the natural desire to make it so.

Exploring the canyons and plateaus of Valles Marineris

Overview map

The canyons inside Valles Marineris
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 2, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows just one small section of a ridge that descends deep into the giant canyon Valles Marineris, the largest known canyon in the solar system.

On the overview map above, the white dot inside the rectangle marks the location, in the westernmost section of the part of Valles Marineris dubbed Ius Chasma.

For scale, the nose of this ridge descends about 7,300 feet from the top to the bottom, about half the total descent from the small isolated plateau shown in the inset. That plateau, located in the mountainous region between Ius Chasma and Tithonium Chasma, rises to approximately the same elevation as the canyon’s rims to the north and south.

What this picture shows us is that Valles Marineris on its western end is both more shallow and broken up, forming several canyons and plateaus. As the catastrophic floods that are theorized to have carved this canyon pushed their way east, they carved a deeper gorge, so that about 1,500 miles to the east the canyon walls are considerable higher, from 20,000 to 30,000 feet in some places.

As always, the tourist in me can’t help look at this terrain and envision inns and hiking trails. Imagine homesteading that plateau where you build a hotel and trails. Since I expect much transportation on Mars will be by air, your guests would fly in, land at a heliport, and spend their visit hiking down into the canyons that surround them.

Damn! The future is going to so grand!

The Europa Clipper team prepares for Mars fly-by

Europa Clipper's route to Jupiter
Click for original image.

As planned, Europa Clipper is set to do a very close fly-by of Mars on March 1, 2025, zipping past the red planet at a speed of 15.2 miles per second only 550 miles above its surface. The graphic to the right shows the spacecraft’s planned route to Jupiter, including an additional fly-by of Earth in 2026.

During this first fly-by the science team will test two of Europa Clipper’s instruments.

About a day prior to the closest approach, the mission will calibrate the thermal imager, resulting in a multicolored image of Mars in the months following as the data is returned and scientists process the data. And near closest approach, they’ll have the radar instrument perform a test of its operations — the first time all its components will be tested together. The radar antennas are so massive, and the wavelengths they produce so long that it wasn’t possible for engineers to test them on Earth before launch.

The spacecraft launched with transistors not properly hardened for the hostile environment around Jupiter. Engineers claimed these would “heal” themselves once in Jupiter orbit. No word on whether there has been any issue from these components since launch.

Curiosity looks uphill into canyon

Panorama taken on February 23, 2025
Click for full resolution. For original images, go here and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

The panorama above, reduced and sharpened to post here, was created by me from two photographs taken on February 23, 2025 (here and here) by the left navigation camera on the Curiosity rover on Mars.

The overview map to the right provides the context. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position, with the white dotted line its past travels and the red dotted lines its planned route. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the panorama above.

Several things to note. The boxwork indicated on lower left of the overview map is the rover’s next major geological target. Though the rover team has made no announcement of a major route change, they have clearly diverged from that route by heading south and uphill into this canyon.

In reviewing the interactive map, I have not found any really good route up to the boxwork, other than this canyon. My guess is that the rover team is scouting it out as a possible new route. The panorama above is part of that scouting, and it certainly suggests that the canyon would be a good way to go.

They might also be considering this change because the old route would take them downhill, which would only have them studying geological layers they have already seen up close in Curiosity’s earlier travels. The team might have decided to forego the old route because it would not only look at geology already documented, it would add stress to Curiosity’s already stressed wheels. Since it appears the terrain up hill is going to continue to be this rough for as far as the eye can see, they likely decided it was better to move into unexplored geology now rather than later.

Bumpy frozen lava on Mars

Bumpy frozen lava on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool picture time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 30, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was most likely taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s temperature.

The image is fascinating nonetheless, as the landscape is typically alien for Mars. What caused the many random ridges and knobs? Why are there oblong areas that are smooth and have no ridges? And why is there dark material inside that crater that appears to have been blown out to the northeast? If you click on the image to see the full image, not all the craters look this way. One has a similar dark feature, but others are as bland as the entire terrain.

The overview map below only increases these mysteries, even if it does provide some further data.
» Read more

A Martian glacier of dust

A Martian glacier of dust
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture above, rotated, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 2, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The tiny white dot near the lower center of the overview map below marks the location, on the northern wall of the smaller parallel canyon to the much larger part of Valles Marineris dubbed Coprates Canyon.

The scientists label this a “slope deposit.” What I see is a dust glacier flowing down hill in that long hollow (indicated by the arrows), with the ripple dunes actually acting almost like waves. Nor is this description unreasonable. On Mars the dust will gather in the hollows of these slopes and over time, with no rain and little wind to disturb them, will begin to flow down much like a glacier.

In this case, the descent is gigantic, considering the size of Valles Marineris. From the top to bottom of this image the elevation drop is about 14,000 feet over a distance of 11 miles.

Overview map

The broken edge of Mars’ largest volcanic ash field

The broken edge of Mars' largest volcanic ash field
Click for original image.

Overview map

Cool image time! The picture above, reduced and rotated to place north to the left, was taken on November 5, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labeled it “Stepped Features in Tartarus Skopulus”. The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, right at the equator on the northern edge of the Medusae Fossae Formation, the largest volcanic ash field on Mars, about the size of the subcontinent of India. As I wrote in a post in 2024:

It is believed that most of the planet’s dust comes from this ash field. It is also evident that the ash is a leftover from the time period more than a billion years ago when the giant volcanoes that surround this field were erupting regularly. The eruptions laid down vast flood lava plains that coat the surface for thousands of miles.

The ash either came from the eruptions themselves, or was created as the thin Martian wind eroded those flood lava plains, slowly stripping ash from the top. The ash then gathered within the black-outlined regions on the map.

In that 2024 post the cool image showed another location on the north edge of Medusae. In that case the prevailing wind had carved long parallel ridges as it pulled ash from the field.

Here, the wind appears to play no part, or if it did, it produced a very different terrain. At first glance it appears the stepped terraces formed as the ash field began to slide downhill to the north, spreading to crack along the curved lines. The inset especially suggests this explanation.

A closer look instead suggests these terraces each represent a different layer of ash placed down by a sequence of eruptions. Over time the prevailing winds, which here appear to generally blow to the south, stripped off the top of each layer, creating this stair-step landscape.

I however have no guess as to why the terraces are curved. Regardless, it is all strange, but quite beautiful in its own way.

Another “What the heck?” image on Mars, this time a mystery on both small and large scales

What the heck?
Click for the original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 21, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

In this case however the camera team picked this spot probably to satisfy their own curiosity. This same location was photographed by MRO back in July 2022, and they were likely wondering if the streaks coming off these dark spots had changed at all in the subsequent years.

As far as I can tell, there has been no significant change, though the highest resolution versions of these images might show more.

The geology in the picture itself is very puzzling. At first glance the dark streaks appear to have been caused by wind blowing the dust from the dark spots. At second glance this doesn’t work, as large dark areas do not appear to be linked to those dark spots.

What is going on here?
» Read more

Glacial material even in Mars’ Death Valley

Glacial material even in Mars' Death Valley
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 25, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this a “layered feature,” which is appropriately vague in order to not prematurely push a conclusion that is not yet proven. Extensive orbital imagery and data however strongly suggests the layers inside this crater are glacial in nature, each layer laid down during Mars’ many thousands of climate cycles as the planet’s rotational tilt swung back and forth from 11 degrees to 60 degrees. According to the most popular theory today, when that tilt was high, the mid-latitudes (where this 3,000-foot-wide unnamed crater is located) were actually colder than the planet’s poles. The water ice at the icecaps would then migrate from the poles to the mid-latitudes, causing the glaciers to grow.

When the tilt was low the process would reverse, with the mid-latitudes now warmer than the poles, causing the glaciers to shrink. The wedding cake nature of these layers is likely because, over time, Mars has steadily lost its total budget of water to space, so with each cycle the glacier could not grow as much.

Though many such glacial-filled craters have been found in the mid-latitudes, reinforcing these theories, the location of this crater is even more interesting.
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Pits formed from sublimating underground ice on Mars?

Pits formed from sublimating underground ice
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 31, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this “Impact Ejecta with Marginal Pits,” though even on the full image I am not sure what the impact ejecta is. The pits themselves appear to have formed when near-surface ice sublimated away during the summer months. The location is at 59 degrees north latitude, deep within the Martian northern lowland plains. Since orbital data suggests much of those plains at this latitude has an ice table of some thickness near the surface, it is very reasonable to assume these pits formed when summer sunlight heated that ice, turning it to gas which eventually pushed out to form the pits.

But what about the impact ejecta? Where is it? And where is the crater from that impact?
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A pimple on Mars

A pimple on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 1, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was likely not taken as part of any specific research project, but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule in order to maintain its proper temperature. When the camera team does this they try to pick something interesting, and sometimes succeed.

I think they succeeded in this case. At first glance this appears to be a crater, but on closer inspection it is instead a small mound. The picture was taken in the winter, at the high latitude of 55 degrees north. The featureless white surface surrounding this dark mound is almost certainly the mantle of dry ice that falls as snow and covers the poles during the winter. If not that, it is then likely to be a water ice sheet that orbital data suggests covers much of Mars’ high latitudes.
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The weird landscape in Mars’ glacial country

Overview map
Glacier country in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars

The weird landscape in Mars' glacier country

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 4, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels the features in the lowland below the mesas “ribbed terrain.” To me it looks like peeling paint. What it is however is glacial material, a lot of it. The white dot on the overview map above marks the location, in the middle of the 2,000-mile-long mid-latitude strip in the northern hemisphere I label glacier country, because practically every high resolution image of this region shows glacial features like those on the right.

The mesa with the crater on top gives a clue on the geological history. This is chaos terrain, a region of random mesas cross-crossed with canyons and wide low plains, as shown in the inset. The entire surface was probably once at the same height as the top of that mesa with the crater. Over time glacial ice eroded away along fault lines. As that sublimation process continued, the fault lines widened to became canyons, then the flat plains, with the isolated mesas remaining between.

The “peeling paint” terrain is likely a layer of ice that is in the process of sublimating away.

Martian hardened dunes untouched by dust devils

Hardened dunes and dust devils
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on September 26, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

I picked this image out of the MRO archive because of the many dust devil tracts that cut across the entire image, traveling in all directions with no apparent pattern. I also picked it because those tracks also cut across the many parallel small ridges that appear to be ancient ripple dunes that have since hardened into rock. What makes this landscape puzzling is how those dust devil tracks leave no evidence on those ridges. It is as if the ancient ripple dunes were laid down after the very recent dust devil tracks, even though that is chronologically entirely backwards.

Apparently, the dust devil tracks form because the devil only disturbs the dust that coats the flat low ground between the ridges. The ridges themselves are hard, and thus the devils, produced in Mars’ extremely thin atmosphere, can leave no mark.
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Gullies on crater wall

Gullies on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 8, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The picture’s research focus is the gullies, which the scientists’ describe as “perched pole-facing gullies on ancient crater wall.” Perched means the start and end of each gully is on that crater wall, linked neither to the top or bottom of the wall itself. That the gully starts below the top means whatever caused it came from within the wall itself, not from the plateau above. That it ends before the crater floor means the process that cut the gully out was not powerful enough to reach the bottom.

That the gullies are on the interior north wall of this unnamed 25-mile-wide crater means they get less sunlight year round, something that must play a part in causing the gullies.
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Curiosity’s view from the heights

Panorama of Gale Crater taken February 3, 2025
Click for full resolution panorama. Original images can be found here, here, and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above was created by me from three images taken by Curiosity’s left navigation camera today (available here, here, and here).

The overview map to the right provides the context. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position. The red dotted line marks the planned route, while the white dotted line its actual travels. The yellow lines indicate the area covered by the panorama above.

The butte in the center where the red dotted line ends is about a half mile away. The far rim of Gale Crater is about 25 to 30 miles beyond. Though Curiosity has climbed about 3,000 feet from the floor of the crater where it landed, it still sits about 5,000 feet below the top of the crater’s rim.

As you can see, the air at Gale Crater has cleared somewhat from December 2024. Then the rim was barely visible. Now it can be seen, though the crater floor is still obscured by a layer of dust.

The journey west continues to slow but steady. The rover can only go so far each day across this very rough terrain, so as to protect its already damaged wheels.

Hardened dunes or eroded lava?

hardened dunes or eroded lava?
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 4, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It is labeled as a “terrain sample,” so it likely was taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

The picture shows a flat rippled plain with a handful of very small thin ridges, oriented 90 degrees from the smaller ripples and sticking up a few feet above them.

The rough surface of the small ripples suggest these are dunes of sand that have hardened into rock. The thin larger ridges suggest an underlying topography buried by the sand. The dunes however might not be dunes at all, as indicated by their location.
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