Tag: Mars

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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was a captioned image on January 6, 2023 from the science team of the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). From the caption by Alfred McEwen of the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory in Arizona:

In the late winter when first illuminated, the carbon dioxide frost at high latitudes will begin to sublimate. Over sand dunes, the defrosting spots and mass wasting on steep slopes produce striking patterns. This scene is especially artistic given the shapes of the dunes as well as the defrosting patterns.

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Sometimes a cool image goes from bafflement to obvious as you zoom into it. The cool image to the right, cropped to post here, does the opposite. It was taken on October 11, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have purposely cropped it at full resolution, so that its eroded glacier nature is most obvious.

The cracks and hollows are likely caused by the sublimation of the near surface underground ice, breaking upward so that the protective surface layer of debris and dust collapses at some points, and cracks at others.

The overview map below further confirms the likelihood that we are looking at glacial features, but when we also zoom out from this close-up we discover things are not so easily explained.
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on September 10, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The location is at 38 degrees north latitude, in the Martian northern lowland plains. At this latitude in these plains the geological features seen in high resolution pictures almost always invoke near surface ice, including processes that disturb that underground ice layer.

This picture is no different. Not only does it appear that a glacier is flowing down from the top of east-west ridge, the middle mound includes a crater with its southeast rim gone and appears filled with material that suggests ice.

The greater geographic context of this location can be seen in the overview map below.
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 4, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

I really have no idea what caused these distorted cones. My intuition (a dangerous thing to rely on when it comes to science) suggests these are volcanic in nature. Imagine hot lava with gas bubbling up from below. Periodically a gas bubble will burst on the surface releasing the gas. Depending on temperature, that bursting bubble could harden in place.

The overview map below provides some support for my intuition, but it also suggests this first hypothesis could be completely wrong, something that does not surprise me in the least.
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 12, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The image is rotated so that south is at the top. The science team labels this a “subsidence feature,” or in plain English, a sinkhole.

Its perfectly circular shape, plus its central peak, strongly suggests we are looking at an impact crater. However, the lack of a raised rim of debris, produced by the ejecta from the impact, raises questions about this conclusion, and is one reason why the scientists think this is a sinkhole instead. Its shape however could be telling us that this sink is simply mirroring the existence of a buried crater.

The overview map below as always provides more context.
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 4, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The MRO science team labeled this simply “Diverse Terrain,” an apt description but woefully incomplete.

Though the grade here goes uphill to the south, there are ups and downs along the way. The flat areas near the top as well that band near the bottom appear to be the oldest terrain, with the rough hollows appearing to be places where that flat material has sublimated or eroded away.

This terrain is in the very high southern latitudes. South is to the bottom of this picture, with the south pole of Mars about 380 miles away. Thus, that eroding top layer is likely disappearing because it has either water ice or dry ice within it, and over time it sublimates away.

The picture itself was taken in winter, when the entire surface is likely covered with a thin mantle of dry ice that fell as snow with the coming of colder temperatures. A wider view of this region in the spring, taken by MRO’s context camera, shows that this mantle, now appearing like white frost, appears largely confined to the higher terrain. Apparently, the annual sublimation of this dry ice mantle is linked somehow to the erosion of this flat terrain.

The additional location information provided by overview map below helps explain why this terrain is so diverse.
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 10, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be a relatively featureless plain with a surface resembling stucco.

At -9 degrees south latitude, this is in the Martian dry equatorial regions. No ice or glaciers here. However, the consistent orientation of the knobs and hills suggest dunes and sand blown by prevailing winds, and that guess holds some truth. This location is deep within the Medusae Fossae Formation, the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars, covering an area about as big as India, and believed to be the source of most of the red planet’s dust.

We are thus looking at thick layer of ash, its surface shaped over eons by the winds of Mars’ thin atmosphere.
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 31, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists call “layering” surrounding this pointed mesa, which I roughly estimate to be somewhere between 200 to 400 feet high.

As you approach the mesa you first walk on the dust-covered flat plains. Then you start up a slope of what looks like alluvial fill, material that over time has fallen from the mesa to pile up as an apron at its base. You then reach a series of terraces, each likely marking a different layering major event from sometime in the distance past. Over time, for unknown reasons, the material surrounding this material has eroded away, while the mesa and its layers somehow survived.

The overview map below helps tell us what those past layering events were, as well as the source of the large amount of dust and sand at this location.
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