river valleys?
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by
stephen309
H all,
Could these be dry river valleys? I've marked the features with a star.Posted
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by
mschwamb
scientist, translator
in response to stephen309's comment.
They kinda look like river valleys. They're not, but they are channels that are sculpted but instead of water it is by carbon dioxide gas. These veins in the images are what we call "spiders" or araneiform . We're looking at the south pole of Mars where is an ice sheet of carbon dioxide on the surface. In the spring/ summer when the sun come up the sun heats the base of the ice sheet the ice sublimates on the bottom creating carbon dioxide gas that carves these channels or spider-like features. If the gas can exploit through cracks in the ice sheet the gas escapes into the atmosphere bringing along dust and dirt to the surface that we think get blown by surface binds into the beautiful fans we ask to mark or if no wind the blotches we ask you to map.
Cheers,
~MegPosted
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by
Portyankina
scientist
if you suppose by the word "river" that it was at some time carved by running liquid water, than no, it can not be. The temperatures here are too low (-123C) for water to be liquid.
Posted
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by
stephen309
I was thinking it might be a feature a billion years old, when some speculate water might have been present. I should have made myself a bit clearer in my original post. Thanks all the same for clarifying. I think the tutorial could perhaps do something on the spiders as I've had them come up a few times, and each time I think to myself 'what is this?'. Its pretty cool thing to see.
StePosted