Photo: NASA/JPL/UArizona
The phrase “lovely layers” is not exactly something one would expect the scientists from NASA and the University of Arizona to use when describing a feature of Mars. But one has to remember scientists are human too, and allowed to wax poetically as well.
If you have been watching our coverage of Martian images sent back by the HiRISE camera orbiting the planet, you might have noticed a sizeable number of them show the planet’s Arabia Terra region in the north of the planet.
It’s a heavily cratered place, like most of the Martian surface, but also heavily eroded, and that exposes the many layers of the planet’s crust. In Arabia Terra, these layers come in wide “diversity and beauty,” as NASA says, making the place “one of our favorite regions to image.”
The main photo of this piece shows some of those beautiful layers, as seen by the HiRISE camera in August 2020 from an altitude of 271 km (168 km). It’s not an image NASA wanted, but one that came to be as a result of public request because yes, anyone can ask for photos from Mars.
Provided the one asking for the image comes with compelling scientific arguments, the people running the orbital camera might move it into position and snap a still of the place.
That’s what happened here, and the compelling scientific arguments are the completion of a stereo pair and creation of a digital terrain model of the area. “These products can help us measure the thickness of the deposits,” says NASA, adding it suspects “layers may be formed by groundwater rising up to deposit minerals and cementing sediments.”
To date, the HiRISE camera sent back tens of thousands of images of Mars, but we’re still no closer to better understanding the alien world than we were more than a decade ago.
It’s a heavily cratered place, like most of the Martian surface, but also heavily eroded, and that exposes the many layers of the planet’s crust. In Arabia Terra, these layers come in wide “diversity and beauty,” as NASA says, making the place “one of our favorite regions to image.”
The main photo of this piece shows some of those beautiful layers, as seen by the HiRISE camera in August 2020 from an altitude of 271 km (168 km). It’s not an image NASA wanted, but one that came to be as a result of public request because yes, anyone can ask for photos from Mars.
Provided the one asking for the image comes with compelling scientific arguments, the people running the orbital camera might move it into position and snap a still of the place.
That’s what happened here, and the compelling scientific arguments are the completion of a stereo pair and creation of a digital terrain model of the area. “These products can help us measure the thickness of the deposits,” says NASA, adding it suspects “layers may be formed by groundwater rising up to deposit minerals and cementing sediments.”
To date, the HiRISE camera sent back tens of thousands of images of Mars, but we’re still no closer to better understanding the alien world than we were more than a decade ago.
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