Planet Four Talk

Image with 6 Fans; Two OverLap -- What Is the Lighter Material?

  • msc386 by msc386

    Marked 6 Fans in this image, two of which overlap (and are slightly south and west of image center). All six fans appear to weather-vaning in concert,
    which would suggest wind coming from the same direction when they were made. The density of the deposited material in the fans marked appear to indicate the following :

    1. Slow wind speed (relatively speaking)
    2. Fans were created at about the same time --
      • therefore, fans are about the same age, respectively.

    The instances of the lighter tan material showing up in the image data were marked as "features". But what is it really? Lighter-colored soil, or is this frost that we are seeing here? Thoughts, opinions? I am still new to this project, and I am not entirely sure of what is shown here, but I did my best to classify it nonetheless.

    Posted

  • Kitharode by Kitharode moderator

    You seem to be doing ok with your marking so far and your observations about the wind and fans are generally sound. Well done. It's nice to see you asking questions too; we'll do our best to answer them all.

    The lighter material is most likely to be frost on the surface, but it might be a different type of rock showing through the general surface material.

    Posted

  • Portyankina by Portyankina scientist

    Hi!
    Most likely the bright material is frost, probably fresh(er) CO2 frost or thin layer of water ice. Spectrometers detect both ices on the surface at these times with CO2 signal dominating. However the sizes of these features are too small for spectrometers to resolve, so we can not say for sure which frost it is.

    Anya

    Posted