Interesting MOC pictures - Place to post interesting MOC pictures

Palomar · 2004-10-22 11:47:12

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=14290]I like these dunes

*Looks like they're pointing out a way...

Robert, I'll get back to your questions soon. Have checked the pics you've linked to today.

Is it just me, or does it still seem weird sometimes to consider that entire globe is without vegetation (at least so far as we've been able to see and detect)? ???

Is rather strange to think about sometimes, sitting here on a garden planet.

Is this the way it is for life throughout the universe? The norm is sparse to absolutely void and the exception is "overrun like a riot rife with life"?

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2004-10-22 12:06:43

So we probably do not have any rovers near any of these interesting features. How long would it take to get one there? I would really like to see some caves and some of the other stuff close up.

REB · 2004-10-22 12:58:02

Space nut, if you look at http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15/mc23.html]this map, the area I have been referencing is the middle top third. Where Spirit is is over to the right middle. Looking at the Globe of Mars, they are all in the same area, but on a local scale, Spirit could not drive that far.

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12 … .html]Here is that link from the post above that I messed up the HTML code on.

REB · 2004-10-22 13:00:32

BTW, http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/]here is the main site I use for MOC pictures

I like the MOC Narrow Angle Images section

REB · 2004-10-22 13:12:15

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e01_e06 … .html]Here is where Spirit is.

There is some dark material near Spirit.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-10-22 20:02:17

I just can't figure it out.
Sometimes I could swear I'm looking into deep dark pools of briny water in these pictures - with shorelines and transparent shallows, gradually deepening to where the bottom is obscured by the mass of water above it.
Then I see another picture and think .. Nahhh! It's just dark sand.
Is there no instrument orbiting Mars today which can tell us if we're looking at liquid water, or at least brine? I'm going crazy with curiosity here!!
:bars2:

Palomar · 2004-10-23 11:46:00

*Found these at Astropix. Some of them are MOC, but I'm not sure if all are (I'm really pressed for time right now):

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000425.html]Get a load of this! Awesome. (If I have seen this pic before, I must be getting early-onset Alzheimer's disease, because I don't remember it...and how could an image like this be forgotten?)

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030815.html]I think this has been posted previously, in some New Mars thread... But just to be on the safe side, will post it.

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030218.html]Simply breathtaking Have seen -portions- of this region of Mars, but am sure not THIS particular photo.

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980319.html]A Canyon's Edge "High resolution Mars Global Surveyor images were combined with Viking Orbiter color data to produce this stunning, detailed view of a Martian canyon's edge." (Watch your step!...)

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971113.html]A Sheer Close-Up Another eye-popper. Anyone for skiing?

--Cindy

atomoid · 2004-10-24 20:55:49

Is there no instrument orbiting Mars today which can tell us if we're looking at liquid water, or at least brine? I'm going crazy with curiosity here!!
:bars2:

I believe that Odyssey should have gotten a huge neutron count for any areas of liquid water on the surface if they existed. Although it only measures netrons dissociated from hydrogen by cosmic rays (at least i think thats how it works...) any water on the surface shoull show a big return with this instrument. The http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey … .jpg]false color map shows a lot of blue over the ice especially...

Although i guess it possible that these "lakes" would be too small to show up on such a global image, id suspect that any water, even if it is brine and doesnt freeze, should impart immediately apparent erosional affects on its immediate surroundings

Shaun Barrett · 2004-10-24 21:34:25

Thanks, Atomoid, for the comeback on the surface water question.
The 'neutron-based' water detection instrument has, as far as I know, only produced maps on a planetary scale. So I think your comment about the sensitivity being too low to detect small ponds of brine is probably right.
Perhaps one of the cameras orbiting Mars could be aimed at one of these hypothetical ponds in such a way as to capture a glinting of the Sun off the surface. A mirror-like effect would betray the existence of a body of water. Or is the idea of standing bodies of water (brine) on the martian surface so avant-garde that no professional scientist would even entertain it. In other words, is it a case of: "It's impossible so we don't need to investigate it ... end of story."?
???

atomoid · 2004-10-25 00:34:08

Well, you're not really too far off. even NASA does say this:

"Findings indicated the amount of frozen water in some relatively warm regions on Mars is too great to be in equilibrium with the atmosphere, suggesting that Mars may be going through a period of climate change. Features visible near small, young gullies in some Odyssey images may be slowly melting snowpacks left over from a martian ice age."http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/newsroom/pressreleases/20040825a.html]source

Now, its still an open question if the water ponding up below the gullies persists for very long at the surface or if very much sinks below the ground before it evaporates away. But if the water does pond up, it might last long enough to create features that, to me at least, resemble a http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/jun … .jpg]dried up pond with shoreline features at the bottom of the gully in this picture and are even more apparent in this http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/e7_ … especially striking image.

So is the water briny enough to stay wet without freezing or evaporating away before it can pond up signifficantly? Aquifers are likely to contain briney water from the start, but snowpacks, as the proposed source of the gully water, are likely to be fresh water and an melt would not persist long unless the water dissolved a lot of salts into it before it could evaporate or freeze. Perhaps the snow only melts in areas where it is in contact with the salty soils or dusts so that only a brine mixture is able to reach a liquid phase, and is never in such an evaporation-ready state.

Some gullies do seem wet today, for instance look at the closeup of the damp]http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/june2000/ab1/ab1_figure1_50.jpg]"damp seeps" in this image. They actually look damp, but then maybe not, it could just be rougher and therefore darker texture kept free of the lighter dust coating since its steeper and still eroding. But then check out the http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/jun … .html]dark "pool" below it. Almost looks like a lake of water with islands and a clear shoreline, but even if its just a pool of dry sand, this might be dark not because its just basalt sand, but because it is maybe brine remnants and, if there was http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/m … .html]life living in the gullies, perhaps stained dark by some sort of bacterial mat or something that grew there when it was wet and persists as an erosion-resistant hard-baked dark duracrust of altered organics cementing the soil.

I tend to think well eventually get proof of active seeps and damp soils at or near the surface in lots of areas on mars. Open water in pools is harder to justify, youd expect to see really clear inflow and shoreline effects associated with it, some of the images linked here argue that that this has occurred in the past, but nothing convincing ive yet seen for current water pools, just dark (and maybe damp) sand to me...

not to get too far offtrack but heres some http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/the … html]other great images of gullies:
some stringy]http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/04/27/2003.04.27.M1901170.jpg]'stringy' gullies and some interesting http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/200 … urrounding terrain

REB · 2004-10-26 10:37:36

Great pictures, atompoid.

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15 … 0.jpg]Here is one I have been looking over.

I find the dark streaks interesting. They must come from a sedimentary layer, but what are they composed of. Volcanic ash? Blueberries?

Even more interesting is the small crater at the very bottom of the image. If I am not mistaken, it has that “splashed” appearance that is formed when an impactor melts ice and splashes warm mud about. If this is the case, it must mean that groundwater/ice must be very close to the surface, which is surprising since this location is near the Equator.

Would a comet make a splash crater in a dry area?

REB · 2004-10-26 11:55:13

Atomoid, compair those pictures you posted to http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 … 1.htm]This one.

Notice the Glacier Tongues. I wonder if the features at the bottom of the Mars' Gullies in your pictures are ice tongues.

atomoid · 2004-10-27 03:53:54

The 'tongues' at the bottom of the gullies i thought were water pool remnants, i still tend to think so, but i can see that it also looks like glacier tongues, or slide tongues, for instance, the areas below the slopes in the image below seem to be blobs of catastrophic erosion debris (an ice/rock/ash slurry?) underneath the soil and floating the overlying material down the slope with it like in
this picture of Mt. St. Helens, 2 frames taken 9/03 and 10/04.
a few striking resemblances to martian features eh?

Those dark streaks NASA dismisses as 'dust avalanches', which seems the simplest of the possible explanations. the high contrast of the dark streaks to the light soils is apparently due to the revealing of non sun-bleached soil by the avalanche and underexposed due to the contrast balance needed to optimally image the surrounding terrain. the liquid theory is appealing, but if it were some type of liquid, id expect to see more erosion associated with the streaks, but they seem so smooth, many of the streaks end in a ragged fluted edge which is odd. i cant wait for some MRO pictures to shed some more light on this mystery as well as those isolated dark sand drifts like http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15 … 40.jpg]the ones in the middle of the picture with the splash crater and streaks.

the splash crater certainly argues that its wet below the surface, very wet. im definately not an astrophysist, but i wouldn't expect a comet to make such a big splash from its own water alone, i think the energy of the collision would mostly vaporize the water, whereas if one hit permafrost, the hot debris curtain might melt and disturb a comparatively large area of permafrost like we see. maybe the splash crater 'tongues' are remnants as the less-cemented soils around it got eroded away over the ages leaving them an embossed look, and not really debris curtain material sitting on top.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-10-27 07:25:20

Thanks, Reb and Atomoid!
It's great to see this stuff being discussed in an open and intelligent way. I don't know why NASA can't do the same.
Oh, I realise NASA can't be seen to be too speculative about it but I feel they're taking the reticence just a little too far. Whether it's entirely their policy to do so or just another example of professional scientists being too afraid of ridicule, and even ostracism, I don't know. But NASA's catch-cry recently has been "Follow the Water!" and yet it seems more like they're actively avoiding it than following it!
Given that we now know much of Mars has water in the soil, and often a great deal of water quite close to the surface, enigmatic features extraordinarily reminiscent of ponds, 'tongues' of ice, slurries of mud around craters, etc. should surely be investigated more closely. We have the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Express orbiters sending back countless images; surely one of these satellites, at least for some of the time, could be devoted to analysing a few of these features in an attempt to determine their nature once and for all.
Where is all the excited discussion about it from NASA scientists? Or are they all under pressure to conform in some way? At least Dr. Chris McKay came out and said the discussion of Opportunity's "magic carpet" of mud-like material just "went away" when it shouldn't have. (I like that man! )
I think it's becoming more difficult to deny there's a kind of code of silence about water on Mars, despite NASA's purported interest in it. O.K., I agree there's no indisputable evidence of standing bodies of water (or brine) on the martian surface but, with the way NASA's going about the investigation (or should I say not going about it?), there never will be!

I know I tend to harp on paradigms, but I think they're important in this situation. There's a paradigm going back to Viking, and perhaps as far as the disappointment of Mariner 4's photographs, which says Mars is a bone-dry, frozen, sterile desert and standing water is impossible on the surface due to the temperature and atmospheric pressure. Despite Viking evidence suggesting metabolism by micro-organisms in the soil, exotic hypothetical soil chemistry was invented to explain away those results. Now that we have tantalising photographic evidence of surface brine and ice, it's being conveniently ignored.
Important reputations rest on the proclamations that Mars is dry and, consequently, lifeless. I have a strong feeling nobody wants to rock the boat too much while the 'eminences grises' responsible for those proclamations are still alive.

Another crackpot conspiracy theory?
Yeah, maybe ... or maybe not. :;):

[P.S. By the way, try and ignore my paranoid ranting and keep the pictures coming! I, for one, appreciate the effort you guys put into this thread. Nice work! ]

REB · 2004-10-27 07:43:14

When I first saw that satellite picture of Mt. Saint Helens, I was reminded of Mars. The Environment of Saint Helens is similar to some places on Mars. The main differences is the higher air pressure and gravity.

On Saint Helens, water exists as a solid, except where the local heat source melts it so it can flow. It then freezes again. I believe this is similar to what is happening at some sites on Mars. Either a local heat source is melting it, or (more likely) ground water is flowing into the area. What ever the source of the water, it only flows for a short period of time before it freezes or evaporates, just like in the Saint Helen’s crater.

REB · 2004-10-27 12:16:17

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15 … .jpg]Check out the streaks in the bottom of this MOC picture

Two things I find interesting about these streaks.

1. They tend to start at a tiny spot.

2. They seem defy the terrain. Notice they do not flow around bumps in their way. They don’t meander like water would. I want to say it is almost like the dark material was blasted outward and then quickly settled. Some sort of out gassing?

Palomar · 2004-11-04 07:17:04

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.htm … 5]Westward moving storm front

*Is a THEMIS image. Spaceref.com has apparently been having difficulties hosting these images; earlier this week most only appeared as white boxes with red "x" in them. Glad they fixed the problem.

Wish this image were larger, or at least wider.

REB:
Check out the streaks in the bottom of this MOC picture
Two things I find interesting about these streaks.

*I don't recall seeing streaks quite like this before. :hm: Interesting.

--Cindy

REB · 2004-11-04 10:02:30

Those streaks are puzzeling. They are seen all over that area of Mars.

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r03_r09 … 00742.html I found an interesting crater in Opportunity’s neighborhood.

REB · 2004-11-04 10:56:53

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/22/]Earth and Jupiter as seen from Mars.

This came out last year, but I have not seen it posted here.

Would Jupiter's disk be viewable from the surface of Mars, and how large would it be compared to our full Moon in our skies?

From Earth the Sun appears about the same size as the Moon. Jupiter is about 1/10th the Diameter of the Sun, so, if you were to put Jupiter one AU from the Earth, it would appear 1/10th the Diameter of the Moon. At that distance, we would be able to see Jupiter’s disk.

At their closest approach, Mars and Jupiter get around 3.285 AU’s. Take our 1/10th Moon sized Jupiter and divide it by 3 and you get the size of Jupiter in Mars sky, during their closest approach. If I remember my math correctly, that would be 1/30 the Moon’s diameter.

For comparison, when Jupiter and Earth come as close as 3.951 AU’s. During this time, I calculate Jupiter’s disk is roughly 1/40th the full Moon’s diameter in our skies.

Someone with good eyesight might be able to see Jupiter’s disk from the surface of Mars, during their closest approach. Jupiter would be very bright on Mars.

BTW, Jupiter and Venus were very close together in Earth skies this morning. I think they'll be even closer tomorrow morning.

REB · 2004-11-04 11:24:59

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15 … 300.html]I wonder if Opportunity could make it to the ray crater in this picture?

Palomar · 2004-11-07 08:59:19

Sometimes I could swear I'm looking into deep dark pools of briny water in these pictures - with shorelines and transparent shallows, gradually deepening to where the bottom is obscured by the mass of water above it.
Then I see another picture and think .. Nahhh! It's just dark sand.

*I definitely share your curiosity and frustration. Sure does look like water in some of those pics - rippling waves. :-\

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.htm … 443]Crater with Streaks

*Neat-o.

[Sorry, I can't resist using a "retro" expression, teehee] Crisp shot, interesting wind info, etc. This crater's about the size of the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona [which I unfortunately have yet to see for myself...]

And is it just me, or does there appear to be similar wind streaking to the west of that smaller crater beneath and to the southeast of the big crater??

--Cindy

REB · 2004-11-08 09:37:54

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15 … .jpg]North America on Mars.

Go about one third the way down the picture.

REB · 2004-11-08 09:41:30

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15 … 19.jpg]Not far from that previous pictue is this nice one.

Check out the layering at the bottom of the picture.

BTW, these last two pictures are in an area not very far to the west from Opportunity.

REB · 2004-11-08 09:42:59

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15 … 0.jpg]More layering West of Oppotunity.

This one could be considered art.

REB · 2004-11-08 09:47:58

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15 … 1.jpg]LOne More. This one is in the same crater as the pictue in the above post.

Talking about dark area's looking like water. Look at these. There are features here that look like shorelines, deep water, shallow water and islands. This is one reason I don't want to jump to conclusions with those Titan pictures where I see what looks like shorelines and river channels.

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Re: Interesting MOC pictures - Place to post interesting MOC pictures

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