Mars then vs now… What changed in 50 years? ????

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UFONews
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A new image from our Mars Express shows a striking scene of two halves: Mars’s bright tan sands meeting dark deposits of volcanic ash.

When this region was first seen by @nasa’s Viking orbiters in 1976, the ash was far less widespread. So what happened in less than 50 years? Either Martian winds have spread the ash over time, or they’ve stripped away the lighter dust that once covered it.

What can we see in this image?

At the top, a 15 km-wide crater sits within the ash, surrounded by a lighter ‘ejecta blanket’, material thrown out during the impact. Inside, squiggly lines hint at icy material slowly creeping over time.

On the right side of the crater, in the dark blanket of ash we can see rounded pits with wavy edges, known as ‘scalloped depressions’. They form as ice below the surface melts or escapes to the air, causing the covering ground to become unstable and collapse.

The bottom half of this two-toned scene is just as fascinating: a series of shadowy ditches around 20 km long and 2 km wide meet to form a giant shape. These ditches are formed when the surface cracks, either because layers of wet sediments form weak points or because of tectonic activity.

???? European Space Agency (ESA)

#ESA #Mars #Space
Category
Deep Space
Tags
ESA, European Space Agency, Space
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