Probe Captures Avalanche on Mars

mdekato writes "MSNBC reports that NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured an avalanche on Mars' surface as it happened. Very good still images show what must have been an awesome sight. 'The full image reveals features as small as a desk in a strip of terrain 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) wide and more than 10 times that long, at 84 degrees north latitude. Reddish layers known to be rich in water ice make up the face of a steep slope more than 2,300 feet (700 meters) tall, running the length of the image. Mars' north pole is covered by a cap of ice, and it even snows there. The scientists suspect that more ice than dust probably makes up the material that fell from the upper portion of the scarp.'"

Comments

those poor martians

[jollyreaper]

That's what they get for straying off the marked path.

Re:those poor martians

[Naughty Bob]

On the contrary, this is the beginning of a well rehearsed plan...

As small as a what?

[ricebowl]

'The full image reveals features as small as a desk in a strip of terrain 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) wide and more than 10 times that long, at 84 degrees north latitude.

I know that we've sent various missions to mars; rovers, probes, environmental impact among other what-have-you; but, and this, I feel is important, when did we send the office furniture?

Re:As small as a what?

[jaymzter]

My question is, if there's an avalanche on Mars, does it make any noise? If so, what color?

Re:As small as a what?

[pipatron]

Here in Sweden we are very used to assemble IKEA desks while skiing, It's not as hard as it looks.

In Martian News Today

[Hoi Polloi]

"A skier died in an avalanche today while attempting a decent of the dangerous Xplplplt Cliffs near the North Pole. Search and rescue teams found the victim's body which suffered 8 broken limbs, damage to 2 heads, and 1 missing attenna. The victim did not appear to be wearing a teleporter as recommended for skiing in the backcountry."

Why they never made Skiwatch

[jollyreaper]

Baywatch was a very popular show. It would seem to follow that Skiwatch would also be very popular. You're talking about athletic, fit people doing marvelous adventuresome things. Then I realized the problem: it's hard to show sufficient skin to entice the reptile brain audience when that would only lead to frostbite. A babe in a parka looks like a hunk in a parka looks like an IT nerd in a parka -- nobody could tell the difference. Skiwatch would never succeed. If that's the case, Martian Skiwatch would be even less successful, seeing as the actors would have to wear helmets to retain plausibility. Oh, wait, I know -- skin-tight environmental suits. Do you think audiences would buy the idea of suits thick enough to protect the wearer from 1% of Earth's sea level air pressure that are still thin enough to show nipplage?

Re:Why they never made Skiwatch

[2nd Post!]

Why not? There are plenty of proposals for skintight suits.

The only problem is the helmets, but I'm sure that can be addressed with a 360 degree glass bubble.

Re:Why they never made Skiwatch

[Digital Vomit]

"Stupid sexy Flanders!"

Links to hi-res images

[jdb2]

Here are the links at which all the images taken by the HiRISE instrument can be found from low res to high res raw data :

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/gallery/press/20080303a.html/
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007338_2640/


jdb2

Re:Links to hi-res images

[jdb2]

I'm replying to myself again as in my clumsiness I hit "Reply" instead of "Reply to this".
Anyway, remove the slashes from the ends of the URLs. My brain was in HTML mode. :P


jdb2

Missed!

[southpolesammy]

Whew! Well that was close...guess that GRB wasn't perfectly aimed at us after all....

The original link, with many more stunning shots

[sighted]

The original story from NASA contains some fascinating additional details, a beautiful picture of the Earth and the Moon taken from Mars orbit, and links to thousands of other Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images that were also released yesterday.

Well, you know the old saying.....

[Czarf]

Avalanche is better than none.

Wait, what?

[katterjohn]

"It's great to see something so dynamic on Mars. A lot of what we see there hasn't changed for millions of years."

Mars has dust storms quite often, with some covering the entire planet. How would this have not changed anything during millions of years?

Re:Wait, what?

[Aegis Runestone]

True, but we've never witnessed an avalanche on Mars before. Now that's pretty cool (no pun intended). This does not, however, necessarily show that the planet is active. As far as plate tectonics on Mars go--it's dead. :/

Re:Wait, what?

[iamlucky13]

Well first of all, he obviously said "A lot" hasn't changed, not all. The dust storms don't result in noticable changes to anything from a reasonable distance, certainly not from space. The recent storm that cut into the rovers solar power deposited a layer of dust not even thick enough to be opaque (fortunately), and for any natural objects, it's just dust that was already on them anyways. The dust is ultra-fine grit; nothing that catches the eye by itself.

The polar CO2 icecaps come and go with the seasons, but are basically the same year to year.

The dunes shift almost imperceptibly with the prevailing winds, but dunefields stay in the same approximate place.

I think once or twice a crater has been discovered that wasn't in an older image. Meteor impacts are extremely rare and have yet to be seen in the instant of occurrence on Mars.

Volcanic activity is completely non-existant on present-day Mars.

There's quite a bit of stuff continually happening on Mars, but compared to Earth it looks dead. In comparison to a dust storm or a shifting sand-dune, seeing an avalance consisting of thousands of tons or more of material, some it probably decent size pieces actually in motion on Mars is like Die Hard versus a 1920's silent film. Heck, avalances and landslides even on busy earth are among the more remarkable geological processes.

And seeing an event that lasts perhaps a few minutes on a planet that won't be completely mapped by MRO's HiRISE camera during it's entire time in operation is a really compelling hint that rapidly occuring events like this aren't entirely rare.

When someone pointed out this image yesterday, I just stared at it in amazement for several minutes. This ranks up there Io's volcanoes in coolness. Shoemaker-Levy 9 hitting Jupiter still ranks as solar system natural event of the century, in my book, however.

He would have been OK, except

[EmbeddedJanitor]

he got hit my a flying desk.

Re:He would have been OK, except

[Gazzonyx]

I guess Balmer is stronger on Mars...

Re:He would have been OK, except

[gobbo]

I guess Balmer is stronger on Mars...

No, desks are lighter.

interesting

[wizardforce]

speaking of "avalanches" of dust and rock, the image that was thought to indicate present day water movement on mars may actually be the result of one of these dust avalanches instead.

It's their own fault, true

[commodoresloat]

But there's no need for a religious interpretation. This is clearly evidence of the effects of Martial Warming. If those silly Martians weren't so attached to their darn SUVs they might have escaped this fate....

Why post a third party summation - Go Direct NASA

[icebike]

It always amazes me that people will post the most slimmed down third party
summation of a detailed article that appears on a non-commercial site:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/mro20080303a.html

You aren't getting it

[dreamchaser]

Most of the Martian terrain has apparantly been static for up to millions of years. Dust storms are one thing; we know there is a dynamic atmosphere with seasons and weather there. Capturing an actual avalance, where the surface features are moving and changing, is another matter entirely.

Re:The original link, with many more stunning shot

[sighted]

It's a question of exposure levels. Go out and take a picture of the full moon. If you have exposed the moon correctly, you won't see any stars around it, either. Its light will have washed them all out. Same deal here.