Posted on 03/21/2014 6:30:15 AM PDT by 12th_Monkey
A NASA spacecraft has spotted a big gully on Mars, a feature that appears to have formed only within the last three years.
The powerful HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) imaged the channel, which is found on the slope of a crater wall in the Red Planet's mid-southern latitudes, on May 25, 2013. The feature was not present in HiRISE photos of the area taken on Nov. 5, 2010. NASA unveiled the image on Wednesday (March 19).
While the Mars gully looks a lot like river channels here on Earth, it likely was not carved out by flowing water, NASA officials said.
"The dates of the images are more than a full Martian year apart, so the observations did not pin down the Martian season of the activity at this site," officials wrote in a description of the gully image on Wednesday.
But, they added, "before-and-after HiRISE pairs of similar activity at other sites demonstrate that this type of activity generally occurs in winter, at temperatures so cold that arbon dioxide, rather than water, is likely to play the key role."
However, MRO has observed other Martian features that do seem associated with liquid water — dark streaks known as recurring slope lineae.
RSL lines snake down crater walls and other slopes during warm weather on the Red Planet, and some researchers think they're caused by briny water that contains an iron-based antifreeze. Direct evidence of flowing water at RSL sites, however, remains elusive.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Bush’s fault.
Climate Change.
Blame big oil.
and the its tinted blue . . .
It might have been a river of dirt.
from the photo caption “The location is on the inner wall of a crater “
So a large amount of dirt may have been blown into the main channel from above by wind and then descended down the crater wall and cut the channel out.
Furthermore, where the new channel ends, you can faintly see a new “aluvial delta of new dirt”
...a feature that appears to have formed only within the last three years... While the Mars gully looks a lot like river channels here on Earth, it likely was not carved out by flowing water, NASA officials said.Wow, I'm impressed that NASA would say it that way, since it undermines the whole "Mars is just a frozen version of Earth" meme. Wait for the other shoe to drop -- this gully will have something to do with global warming, Islam, racism, or wealth redistribution. Extra to APoD.
Not a JFK fan but Obama is an absolute insult to one of JFK's great visions of the US being space pioneers.
You forgot Halliburton.
HOLY CRAP!!! A NEW GULLY!!! What an earthshaking discovery. Why this alone is easily worth the billions of plundered tax dollars NASA has spent taking pictures of Mars. We should launch a full out colonization effort immediately. Who cares if it costs a billion dollars a person and will yield absolutely nothing of value? After all "man's future is in space."
< /sarcasm> If you hadn't already guessed.
Who overflowed the toilet!!!
These ladies cut a mean gully.
Streaks and lines along canyon and crater rims appear and disappear seasonally, hinting that their may be water ice below the crust. The phoenix lander found perchlorate ice in in the norther hemisphere around the poles, so it’s very possible that something liquifies as the seasons change on Mars.
This is the first picture I’ve seen that seems to be new, which for me is interesting.
Fissure crack?
If we would have spent the money for the shuttle and the ISS, we might already have established a colony on the moon 30 years ago.
Using that as a building block for a mars colony.
I 100% agree with you.
I’m not sure if Mars has tectonic plates that move like on Earth. The picture also seems unchanged except for the new gully, so I don’t think it was caused by any kind of dry slippage.
They say it was caused within last 3 years, but it is obvious this was really caused within the last 3 weeks...
this gully must be where MA370 finally went it, gouging out a path into the Martian surface.
Well, at least we can put this Malasian thing to rest now.
Can you see the “aluvial delta” that formed at the end of the new gully ?
I think it is clear something ( probably dirt or a slushy dirt) fell from the top of the crater into the crack and then out the bottom.
Therein lies the rub with respect to the geological life of Mars. If tectonics are still active on Mars, then it would have to have a molten core, meaning heavy metals would be at the core. This would be indicated by a magnetic field (presuming the iron core is spinning).
Since Mars has no magnetic field, it is presumed to be dead, tectonically speaking.
There has to be an old, run down mobile home nearby.
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