Amazing Mars
In my red-planet interests, I often find unusual pictures of Mars or illustrated scientific facts about him. Some of them are so amazing that you want to run out into the street and show them to all passersby, so much they are knocked out of the stereotype of Mars as a boring "red lifeless globe." But on the street they will not understand me, but here, I hope, they will appreciate the amazing information about our neighbor in the Solar System.
The first shot is Hephaestus Fossae - a network of “channels” to the west of the Elysium Highland. He made a high definition stereo camera Mars Express satellite. In one photo - a whole slice of the history of Mars. Apparently, the surface is formed by lava flows from the Elysium volcano. From that hot time, a network of lava tubes has survived, which are visible on the right side of the image. Later a flowing river flowed from the mountains, which flowed more than 100 kilometers and broke up into branches with a total width of up to five kilometers. The flow of this river is unusual in that a significant part of it has disappeared into the network of lava pipes, flowing in an unknown direction through the natural network of underground utilities. In the full version of the frame you can see much better (12 mb)
Subsequently, when the climate of Mars changed and the surroundings caught a centuries-old frost, a meteorite fell into the river bed, knocking out a twenty-kilometer crater. On the sides of this crater “blades” are spread out - this is an exceptional feature of the craters of Mars. There were such blades in those places where meteorites crashed into the surface, saturated with water ice. For a certain period of time, this area could be the bottom of the Martian North Ocean (also quite Arctic), and after the onset of cold weather, the ground bound the permafrost.
The following frame illustrates the interaction of a frozen ocean and volcanic lava. (The elevation map of the Mars Express image).
The 4.5 km high Ceranius Tolus volcano rises in the north of the volcanic province of Tharsis. ( full-life in natural color 46 mb , full-height altitude map 70 mb ) It is the fourth link (along with its neighbor Uranius Mons) in the chain of volcanoes: Askriyskaya Mountain, Peacock Mountain, Arsia Mountain.
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The location of four giant volcanoes on virtually one line is one of the arguments in favor of the continental drift that once existed, which, it is believed, was not on Mars. At least, there are no other direct signs of tectonic drift - zones of spreading and subduction , on the planet. But if not the movement of the continents, then some other explanation of such a pattern must be obtained, but so far there is none.
Of all four volcanoes, Ceranius Tolus is the smallest and probably the latest. Together with the neighbor Uranius Mons, it can be several attempts of one hot stream to break through to the surface. One of the last eruptions occurred at a time when the Arctic Ocean surrounding the volcanoes was already frozen, turning into ice deposits covered with dust. The last lava flow melted an oval lake in the ice for itself, on both sides of which there were mud muds.
Scientists have long doubted that there is so much ice on Mars and that it lies practically on the surface. But the powers of heaven helped to make sure.
This photograph, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the near-surface water ice deposits at the 44th parallel in the Northern Hemisphere ( full MB 6 mb ). HiRise high-resolution camera shoots in extended colors, so in the photo white ice looks blue and the gray surface looks greenish. Further observation of this meteor funnel showed that ice in the open air does not hold for a long time and evaporates in a few days. But under a layer of dust, where it cannot heat above zero degrees, ice can lie for millions of years in anticipation of climate warming or the arrival of colonists from the Earth.
Not all the water on Mars calmly lies beneath the surface. There is one that behaved very restlessly several million years ago. ( Picture of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter)
The fantastic glaciers of the Hellas Planitia (Hellas Valley) have only recently attracted close attention. For a long time, researchers could not believe that it was not lava and that only water ice could behave on Mars as a viscous substance. But now they are building climate models explaining the occurrence of these glaciers. According to the accepted theory, Mars experienced periods of strong changes in the axis of inclination, which occasionally exceeded 45 ° for hundreds of thousands of years (now the inclination of Mars is close to Earth’s - 25.19 °). This phenomenon is due to the fact that Mars does not have a balancer like the earth's moon. When there was a strong inclination of the axis of Mars, the existing polar caps were covered with dust, and at the new poles of cold, which began to diverge from the geographic, the accumulation of ice began. The south pole of cold during these slopes was located just in the eastern part of Hellas Planitia.
There are craters on Mars, the origin of which is not completely clear to planetologists. The largest of these is a formation called Orcus Patera ( 45 mb fulllesize ),
Patera is an epithet that is given on Mars to volcanic craters and calderas. But the oblong 380-kilometer crater of Orcus does not bear any trace of volcanism, although it is filled with evenly spread lava. There are several hypotheses of its origin. The tectonic hypothesis says that it was a regular round crater, but then during the tectonic movements of the crust it squeezed on both sides, and it became oval. This exotic assumption is designed to give at least some alternative explanation for the most obvious impression - that the crater arose from the tangential impact of some object that did not collapse, but simply bounced off the surface. As a rule, the colossal energy that is released when a cosmic body of this scale falls, leads to its destruction. And here it turns out that a stone of about 80-100 km in diameter entered the atmosphere of Mars, opened this canyon, and quietly retired along a new trajectory. The energy of the collision melted the stone foundation, and Orcus Patera turned into a giant lake of lava, and the culprit did not leave any visible traces of himself. Perhaps such an impact would have withstood an iron asteroid, but no one has yet the exact answer.
On Mars, this oblong crater is not alone, but it seems that nowhere else in the solar system did such blows occur. At least, I don’t know such examples, and the scientists who analyze this Mars Express image do not want to believe that this is possible.
The thought “It is impossible” also visited me when I first saw this frame ( full-length 0.4 mb ).
This is not a photoshop and not the scenery for the "Dune". This is a real relief detail at the North Pole of Mars, taken by the Mars Odyssey satellite. Even NASA, which very carefully selects the names, this time could not resist and called this place Reptilian Dunes . Despite its exotic appearance, these are just sand dunes, which are formed in such an unusual way by polar winds.
There are still a lot of photos and facts that make me cry “Wow!” From Mars. Today I will complete my review, but if readers like this genre, there is an opportunity to continue it.
The first shot is Hephaestus Fossae - a network of “channels” to the west of the Elysium Highland. He made a high definition stereo camera Mars Express satellite. In one photo - a whole slice of the history of Mars. Apparently, the surface is formed by lava flows from the Elysium volcano. From that hot time, a network of lava tubes has survived, which are visible on the right side of the image. Later a flowing river flowed from the mountains, which flowed more than 100 kilometers and broke up into branches with a total width of up to five kilometers. The flow of this river is unusual in that a significant part of it has disappeared into the network of lava pipes, flowing in an unknown direction through the natural network of underground utilities. In the full version of the frame you can see much better (12 mb)
Subsequently, when the climate of Mars changed and the surroundings caught a centuries-old frost, a meteorite fell into the river bed, knocking out a twenty-kilometer crater. On the sides of this crater “blades” are spread out - this is an exceptional feature of the craters of Mars. There were such blades in those places where meteorites crashed into the surface, saturated with water ice. For a certain period of time, this area could be the bottom of the Martian North Ocean (also quite Arctic), and after the onset of cold weather, the ground bound the permafrost.
The following frame illustrates the interaction of a frozen ocean and volcanic lava. (The elevation map of the Mars Express image).
The 4.5 km high Ceranius Tolus volcano rises in the north of the volcanic province of Tharsis. ( full-life in natural color 46 mb , full-height altitude map 70 mb ) It is the fourth link (along with its neighbor Uranius Mons) in the chain of volcanoes: Askriyskaya Mountain, Peacock Mountain, Arsia Mountain.
')
The location of four giant volcanoes on virtually one line is one of the arguments in favor of the continental drift that once existed, which, it is believed, was not on Mars. At least, there are no other direct signs of tectonic drift - zones of spreading and subduction , on the planet. But if not the movement of the continents, then some other explanation of such a pattern must be obtained, but so far there is none.
Of all four volcanoes, Ceranius Tolus is the smallest and probably the latest. Together with the neighbor Uranius Mons, it can be several attempts of one hot stream to break through to the surface. One of the last eruptions occurred at a time when the Arctic Ocean surrounding the volcanoes was already frozen, turning into ice deposits covered with dust. The last lava flow melted an oval lake in the ice for itself, on both sides of which there were mud muds.
Scientists have long doubted that there is so much ice on Mars and that it lies practically on the surface. But the powers of heaven helped to make sure.
This photograph, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the near-surface water ice deposits at the 44th parallel in the Northern Hemisphere ( full MB 6 mb ). HiRise high-resolution camera shoots in extended colors, so in the photo white ice looks blue and the gray surface looks greenish. Further observation of this meteor funnel showed that ice in the open air does not hold for a long time and evaporates in a few days. But under a layer of dust, where it cannot heat above zero degrees, ice can lie for millions of years in anticipation of climate warming or the arrival of colonists from the Earth.
Not all the water on Mars calmly lies beneath the surface. There is one that behaved very restlessly several million years ago. ( Picture of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter)
The fantastic glaciers of the Hellas Planitia (Hellas Valley) have only recently attracted close attention. For a long time, researchers could not believe that it was not lava and that only water ice could behave on Mars as a viscous substance. But now they are building climate models explaining the occurrence of these glaciers. According to the accepted theory, Mars experienced periods of strong changes in the axis of inclination, which occasionally exceeded 45 ° for hundreds of thousands of years (now the inclination of Mars is close to Earth’s - 25.19 °). This phenomenon is due to the fact that Mars does not have a balancer like the earth's moon. When there was a strong inclination of the axis of Mars, the existing polar caps were covered with dust, and at the new poles of cold, which began to diverge from the geographic, the accumulation of ice began. The south pole of cold during these slopes was located just in the eastern part of Hellas Planitia.
There are craters on Mars, the origin of which is not completely clear to planetologists. The largest of these is a formation called Orcus Patera ( 45 mb fulllesize ),
Patera is an epithet that is given on Mars to volcanic craters and calderas. But the oblong 380-kilometer crater of Orcus does not bear any trace of volcanism, although it is filled with evenly spread lava. There are several hypotheses of its origin. The tectonic hypothesis says that it was a regular round crater, but then during the tectonic movements of the crust it squeezed on both sides, and it became oval. This exotic assumption is designed to give at least some alternative explanation for the most obvious impression - that the crater arose from the tangential impact of some object that did not collapse, but simply bounced off the surface. As a rule, the colossal energy that is released when a cosmic body of this scale falls, leads to its destruction. And here it turns out that a stone of about 80-100 km in diameter entered the atmosphere of Mars, opened this canyon, and quietly retired along a new trajectory. The energy of the collision melted the stone foundation, and Orcus Patera turned into a giant lake of lava, and the culprit did not leave any visible traces of himself. Perhaps such an impact would have withstood an iron asteroid, but no one has yet the exact answer.
On Mars, this oblong crater is not alone, but it seems that nowhere else in the solar system did such blows occur. At least, I don’t know such examples, and the scientists who analyze this Mars Express image do not want to believe that this is possible.
The thought “It is impossible” also visited me when I first saw this frame ( full-length 0.4 mb ).
This is not a photoshop and not the scenery for the "Dune". This is a real relief detail at the North Pole of Mars, taken by the Mars Odyssey satellite. Even NASA, which very carefully selects the names, this time could not resist and called this place Reptilian Dunes . Despite its exotic appearance, these are just sand dunes, which are formed in such an unusual way by polar winds.
There are still a lot of photos and facts that make me cry “Wow!” From Mars. Today I will complete my review, but if readers like this genre, there is an opportunity to continue it.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/163831/
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