Comments on: HiRISE Captures Stunning Images of Mars Avalanches in Action

By: E a pedra rolou ladeira abaixo… em Marte! « Eternos Aprendizes

E a pedra rolou ladeira abaixo… em Marte! « Eternos Aprendizes — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:17:08 +0000

[...] nos lembra a avalanche que a HiRISE flagrou nas fotos abaixo, noticiada em março de [...]

By: marscloseup

marscloseup — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:38:46 +0000

If you study the closeup in the article shown, the upper bright ice layers extend outward to the scarp very edge, where the 'landslide' has occurred. Below the ice, there is a clear recess of the 'lower unit' which is mainly dirt/dust/solids mixed with ices and other chemistry remains of geological historical buildup of layers most ancient. The lower unit is very solid and stable, but eroded. Over great time, the small 'landslide' are has experienced an enormous greater repeated 'landslide' action at just the one narrow zone, below the current limtied width zone of action. The evidence is not of chaotic overburden, but of active ice flow movement horizontally along the upper unit boundary with the lower unit topmost layers. The area is also an active zone of dark streamers, or streaks, which are evidence of active chemistry, and movement of solid materials in very narrow width zones. The movement is toward the scarp edge from the inner ice cap main body. The movement is consistent and far greater outward, almost no movement other than the outward semi-solid ice 'streams'. We often call these glaciers on Earth, but active liquid or semi-liquid streams, active fault zones, and active chemistry cycling is also to blame even on Earth for these movement areas. And we must always consider gravity driven sliding as in a common glacier concept.
These are NOT landslides as such. They do resemble the chaos of casual non-repeated landslides, but are well organized long term individual zones of horizontal actions of the ice overburden. Despite the long statement, it is very important in assessing these as active geology on Mars in well organized horizontal flows.
We need another MRO satellite to complete this geological record keeping.
"Together our field of view is greater." DJ, marscloseup

By: danajohnson0

danajohnson0 — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:36:38 +0000

Some of these avalanches are actually a 'glacier' movement type process. Along this scarp are many such landslide locales, some of which are repetitious and long lived ongoing active geologic transport of material to the plains below. At the plains level some landslides lead to channels which either transported ice or liquid water toward the Northern lowlands. I'll return with a link for images- http://www.marsroverblog.com/forum -
try 'Mars landslides', early 2008.

By: WAKE UP

WAKE UP — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:10:54 +0000

Just another thought, what does all this matter about our way of living on the Earth.
Mars needs oxygen, water,plants,this is mission impossible. What a joke.

By: Tony Trenton

Tony Trenton — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:38:51 +0000

Just a thought.
We are considering colonizing Mars, but what about the lack of an electromagnetic field to protect us from the blasts of radiation from our star?
These blasts are mega dangerous to our forms of life.

Any Ideas?

By: Universe Today » Ancient Lake on Mars Found by HiRISE a Good Place to Look for Life

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:43:42 +0000

[...] HiRISE. To see more, check out their site and our coverage here at UT on this fantastic image of an avalanche in progress on Mars, and this picture of the Earth and Moon together in one beautiful [...]

By: Larry the LarDog

Larry the LarDog — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:06:25 +0000

I think we must add one more potential cause to the Martian avalanches – tidal forces created by the MRO itself. Shame on us for damaging another planet!

And yes, I am just kidding! Just thought I'd beat the nay-sayers to the draw. )

Awesome pictures! Kudos to NASA!

By: Could Mars Quakes, Seasonal Temperature Changes or a Chance Meteorite Impact Cause Mars Avalanches? » astroengine.com

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 04:08:24 +0000

[...] HiRISE has another addition to its record breaking collection of images… it has spotted four avalanches occurring near-simultaneously, along an escarpment region in the North Pole. What makes this special is that the avalanches are [...]

By: TravisM

TravisM — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:28:11 +0000

This is amazing, truely. The idea that, not once or twice, but four times we've captured incidental images of martian avelanches is awesome!
It probably does happen fairly frequently, IMO, like Jason said. Explosively.
Amazing is all I can say. Yes, bravo, cudos, etc.

By: alphonso richardson

alphonso richardson — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:26:52 +0000

If they got it as a moving image, that would have been seriously cool. That said, the stills are spectacular stuff.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:08:50 +0000

This is so exciting, kudos to the HIRISE team. Quick question: can spectrographic analysis be made from this image of the plume?

By: John Mendenhall

John Mendenhall — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:51:07 +0000

Wow !

By: Giles Smith

Giles Smith — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:15:16 +0000

I only came across the HiRISE website yesterday and was absolutely blown aways with some of the recent images that have come back!

Being able to compare activity on our planet to another to such detail will enable us to learn so much more about not only Mars but our own planet too

By: Jason Kurant

Jason Kurant — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:06:23 +0000

I bet these will turn out to be fairly common. With the change of seasons on Mars a large amount of carbon dioxice ice in the polar caps sublimates into gas in the spring and then condenses back into ice in the winter. It makes this layered region. I'm guessing that in the spring the ice can evaporate quickly enough to kind of blow the dirt apart. And enough volume could be lost to make the ground highly unstable, making it unsafe for human or even robot explorers.

Another interseting phenomon I have heard about happening on Mars, and also on IO in one case, is where there is a lot of weight on top of ice so there is pressure on it, the ice does not sublimate, but if the pressure is released, just as with a soda pop, when you release the pressure the amount of CO2 ice in the soil is more than can be disolved at the temperature at the new pressure, and so it violently converts from the ice to a much bigger volume of gas. This blows the ground apart, so to speak. So, I think we will see more of these on Mars. On IO what I heard was happening was this volcano was spewing huge plumes of sulpher dioxide, which landed back on the moon as snow. This precipitation piled up and other material could land on it, resulting in layers and in this case a lot of sulpher dioxide got burried under some other material and was mixed with that material. The underside of the pile started getting warmer due to the moon's internal heat and this caused the warm CO2 ice mixed in with the "dirt" to act again like soda pop and when the pressure was relieved by some nearby activity, eploded into a foam and disapated as a gully.

By: Graham

Graham — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 07:03:29 +0000

If some thing falls and nobody saw it, did it make a noise?
Guess this is the first to make a noise.
Stunning pictures !

By: tacitus

tacitus — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:05:38 +0000

Yeah, I agree. We'll be seeing an awful lot more of this image in the years to come (until we get there ourselves and video something similar).

By: Astrofiend

Astrofiend — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:51:27 +0000

Spectacular! This will definitely be one of THE enduring 'legacy' images not only for the MRO and HIRISE, but for solar system exploration in general. Congrats to the MRO team!