Tag: Mars

Click for original image.

In preparing today’s cool image I initially planned to post an picture taken on December 26, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), as it showed a strange series of ridges that almost resembled waves or ripples on a pond.

In digging into MRO’s context camera archive to get the larger context, however, I immediately switched to the photo on the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here. Taken on December 17, 2010, it shows a much more mysterious and striking set of geological features than the closer view of the high resolution image, with the wave-shaped ridges on its western half but another set of wave-shaped cracks on its eastern half.

Even more intriguing, the arcs for the ridges curve in the opposite direction from the arcs for the cracks. It is almost as if there were two flows moving in opposite directions, right next to each other.
» Read more

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on January 12, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Because of a technical issue that leaves a blank strip down the center of recent high-res MRO images, I have filled in that gap using a MRO context camera photo taken on January 12, 2015. The resolution is much less, but by doing so we can see the ground features as a unit.

What are we looking at? According to the scientists, this picture shows “fresh-looking ruptures,” referring to the broken line of sharp tears inside that meandering canyon that almost resemble a fresh wound in flesh. As this location is at 28 degrees south latitude, it lies on the edge of dry equatorial regions, where orbital images have sometimes found hints of a few remaining buried glaciers that are much more common closer to the poles.

In this case it appears the warmer equatorial climate has acted to heat up the buried ice so that it sublimated into gas. At some point the gas pressure caused the surface to burst, much like bubbles bursting on the surface of a pot of simmering tomato sauce, leaving behind these scars.
» Read more

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on January 29, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Though the scientists label this image showing “channels”, what I see is either a vent or a sink, with the channels to the south indicating past flows either coming out of the depression or into it. The uncertainty exists because the surface grade in this region is essentially flat. There is a lot of small up and down variations, but overall it is very difficult to determine the general trend, suggesting that when the depression and channels formed the grade was different, and there is no way from this data to determine the angle at that time.

Were the flows that created the channels lava or water or ice? Knowing the grade when these channels formed would help answer this question, but other research now suggests the latter.
» Read more

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 1, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small part of a region dubbed Iani Chaos, but what this geology shows is way beyond my pay grade.

Why there are those tiny aligned mounds, oriented at right angles to the slope, is not clear at all. Nor is it obvious what created the lighter chaotic terrain at the base of the slope.

The elevation difference between the low and high points is about 400 feet. The slope continues up to the west for another 600 feet to the top of a north-south ridgeline. The patterns here suggest vaguely some flows downhill, such as that widening east-to-west gap, but only vaguely.

The look at the overview map only compounds the mystery.
» Read more

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 31, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled “Lava Embaying Highlands Ridge”, it shows an alcove along a ridgeline that appears filled with material, in this case solid lava.

If you look closely at the ridgeline, you can see several dark streaks on its southern slopes. These streaks could be one of two unique Martian features that remain unexplained. They could be slope streaks, which occur randomly through the year and fade with time, or recurring slope lineae, which occur seasonally at the same locations. In either case, though the streaks look like avalanches, they don’t change the topography, have no debris piles at their base, and even sometimes flow uphill for short lengths. Though there are a number of theories for their formation, many involving dust, none has been accepted as confirmed.

This location and its lava however are the stars of this picture, for a number of reasons, all revealed by the overview map below.
» Read more

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on December 28, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The white dot on the overview map above marks the location, with the rectangle in the inset marking the area covered by the picture. The science team labels this “inverted features,” a more vague way to describe the feature geologists dub “inverted channels.” The flow of a river or glacier acts to harden and increase the density of the channel bed. Later, the water or ice disappears, leaving just the canyon.

Even later, erosion begins to wear away the surrounding terrain. Because the canyon floor is now harder than that surrounding terrain, that floor is more resistent to erosion, and eventually becomes ridge following the exact same path as the long gone river or glacier.

This is what we have here, with this inverted channel, which is about five miles long, once draining into the deeper eroded valley to the south.

The location is at 38 degrees north latitude and inside the 2,000-mile-long mid-latitude region I dub glacier country, because almost every image shows evidence of glaciers or ice flows on the surface. This picture however is a rare exception. The features in this picture instead appear to be bedrock, something that is rarely seen in the canyons and craters in glacier country. It is beyond my pay grade however to explain why this spot lacks such features. Or it could be the near surface ice here looks so much like bedrock I am misinterpreting the picture.

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on January 24, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a region about 180 miles from the south pole of Mars.

This terrain is intriguing because is the pattern of ridges that cover it entirely. I have simply cropped the original image to show these ridges in highest resolution. The full image shows them covering a region much larger than this.

What are we looking at? Because it is near the pole, it is likely that the black splotches are caused by carbon dioxide gas breaking through the winter mantle of dry ice that covers the poles during the winter months and then sublimates away, from the bottom, each spring. As the dry ice turns to CO2 gas that gas is trapped, until it can find a weak spot in the overlying mantle. When the pressure builds enough, the mantle breaks, the gas escapes, and as it does so it deposits the dark dust around the breakage. That dust fades as the mantle disappears.

Sounds good, eh? Not so fast.
» Read more

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on December 27, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Described merely as an “exposed scarp” by the science team, this cliff edge is actually much more.

First some basic details. The elevation drop from the plateau down to the base of this cliff is about a thousand feet. The material that forms this plateau, scarp, and its base is all volcanic ash. The thicker sections of ash has caused its lower levels to compress, harden into a kind of sandstone. Near the surface however it is more friable, and like sandstone can break apart somewhat more easily.

The prevailing winds at this site are generally blowing to the south, but beginning to turn to the east, which explains the northwest to southeast orientation of the features.

The best analogy I can come up with to explain the erosion of this scarp is as follows: Imagine a deposit of dry mud a few inches thick on pavement. Take a leaf blower and blow at it hard, always in one direction. Eventually the outer edge will break up and blow away, leaving a sharp edge, that will also retreat with time as the wind continues to blow.

Here the winds are eroding that cliff, causing periodic avalanches which dissolve into sand that then blows away, leaving no debris pile at the base of the cliff. The ridges indicate harder material, that breaks away last, which is why there are some ridgelines extending outward from the scarp in line with these ridges. At the same time, these ridges of harder ash still break up with time, as some are cut off suddenly at the cliff edge.
» Read more

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on December 16, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The science team labels the two darkened patches in the picture “plume-like features,” suggesting that the dark material was eruptive material thrown out from the depressions in a volcanic venting, that then settled on the nearby surrounding terrain.

Is that a correct interpretation? It is certainly strengthened by a different feature located about 550 miles to the northwest that looks almost the same. There, researchers theorize that the dark material surrounding a surface fissure was caused by a small volcanic event that occurred somewhere between 50,000 to 210,000 years ago. For that other location, scientists concluded as follows:

After careful comparison of this symmetrical dark feature with other dark wind-caused streaks in this region, the scientists concluded that it was not caused by wind, but is the remains of a relatively recent volcanic eruption that laid down a thin layer of material only about one foot thick.

» Read more

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 6, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows a spot on Mars where lava was squeezed between and around some small peaks as it flowed quickly south, flooding all the low areas in this landscape.

The science team describes the features in the full image as “streamlined”, a description that is literally accurate. As this “stream” of lava rushed past, it “lined” the higher terrain, carving it into tear-dropped shapes.

In the color strip, note the blueish spots at the northern base of the 400-foot-high hill. According to the science team’s explanation [pdf] of the colors in MRO images, “Frost and ice are also relatively blue, but bright, and often concentrated at the poles or on pole-facing slopes.” The picture was taken in summer, so if these bright spots are frost or ice, it suggests they are well shaded from sunlight in those north-facing alcoves. This location is only 9 degrees north of the equator, so finding any near surface ice here is highly unlikely. That frost might exist however is intriguing, to say the least.
» Read more

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on December 23, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The image shows us the north interior rim of 7-mile-wide Niquero Crater on Mars. From the high to the low points the elevation difference is about 2,500 feet, with a steep downhill slope averaging about 18 degrees. The terrain appears to show several avalanche collapses that pushed lower material out of the way, though at the bottom where that material has been pushed aside there is no obvious large debris pile.

The science team labels this image simply “volatiles and gullies”, a label that carries a host of significant information. These gullies, which were among the earliest found by Mars Global Surveyor in the late 1990s, were the first evidence that the surface of Mars had a lot of near surface ice. It is for this reason that this relatively small crater on Mars has a name. Most craters this small remain unnamed, but the gullies on Niquero’s north slopes required more study, and thus the crater was given a name.

Subsequent orbital imagery has now shown that craters like Niquero, located in latitudes higher than 30 degrees, quite often are filled with glacial debris. In fact, the material that these avalanches pushed aside at the base of the slope is that glacial material, protected by a thin layer of dust and debris. The avalanche essentially disturbed that protected layer, and thus the debris pile (made up mostly of ice) sublimated away when warmed by sunlight. Thus. no big debris pile.

The gullies tend to be on the pole-facing slopes. Scientists believe they are the remnant evidence of ancient glaciers that grew on these slopes because they were protected from sunlight. In subsequent eons, when the climate on Mars changed, those glaciers collapsed, leaving behind the gullies we see now.
» Read more

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and enhanced to post here, was taken on October 9, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what appear to be the somewhat typical terrain at this location, in a part of the giant Martian canyon Valles Marineris dubbed West Candor Chasma. For example, I featured similar swirls in August 2022 at a place only about six miles to the east, that spot indicated by the green dot on the overview map above. The white dot marks the location of today’s image.

So, what are we looking at? The elevation drop from the high and low points is only about 180 feet, but in that short distance it appears there are more than two dozen visible layers, and those layers form terraces that alternate between bright and dark material.

The shape of the swirls also suggest that a flow of some kind, either water, ice, or wind, moved from the northwest to the southeast, carving these terraces as it descended the stair steps downward. It is also just as likely that we are seeing repeated lava flows going downhill to the southeast, each even laying another layer on top of the preceeding one. And it is also possible that we are looking at a combination of both.

The alternating dark and light layers suggest that each dark layer was an event that put down dark material, such as volcanic dust, that was subsequently covered with light material, with this process repeating itself many times over the eons.

That the floor of this part of Valles Marineris is uniquely covered in this manner is in itself intriguing. Why here, and not elsewhere within the canyon?

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on October 2, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labeled this a “lava margin.” The darker material on the right is apparently a newer deposit of lava, flowing on top of the lighter lava on the left. The newer deposit is only about three feet thick, so it had to have flowed fast almost like water to cover this large area with such a thin layer before freezing. Even so, this new lava layer has a roughness greater than the older layer below it. Either the older layer is smoother because of erosion from wind over eons, or the lava in these two layers was comprised of slightly different materials that froze with different textures.

The small ridges appear to be wrinkle ridges, created when material shrinks as it freezes.

This margin marks the edge of a very large flood lava event, as illustrated by the overview map below.
» Read more