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Amazonis Quadrangle
The Amazonis quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Amazonis quadrangle is also referred to as MC-8 (Mars Chart-8). The quadrangle covers the area from 135° to 180° west longitude and 0° to 30° north latitude on Mars. The Amazonis quadrangle contains the region called Amazonis Planitia. This area is thought to be among the youngest parts of Mars because it has a very low density of craters. The Amazonian Epoch is named after this area. This quadrangle contains special, unusual features called the Medusae Fossae Formation and Sulci. Medusae Fossae Formation The Amazonis quadrangle is of great interest to scientists because it contains a big part of a formation, called the Medusae Fossae Formation. It is a soft, easily eroded deposit that extends for nearly 1,000 km along the equator of Mars. The surface of the formation has been eroded by the wind into a series ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quadrangle (geography)
A "quadrangle" is a topographic map produced by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) covering the United States. The maps are usually named after local physiographic features. The shorthand "quad" is also used, especially with the name of the map; for example, "the Ranger Creek, Texas quad". From approximately 1947-1992, the USGS produced the 7.5 minute series, with each map covering an area one-quarter of the older 15-minute quad series, which it replaced. A 7.5 minute quadrangle map covers an area of . Both map series were produced via photogrammetric analysis of aerial photography using stereoplotters supplemented by field surveys. These maps employ the 1927 North American Datum (NAD27); conversion or a change in settings is necessary when using a GPS which by default employ the WGS84 geodetic datum. Beginning in 2009, the USGS made available digital versions of 7.5 minute quadrangle maps based on GIS data that use the NAD83 datum, which is typically within one meter of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HiWish Program
HiWish is a program created by NASA so that anyone can suggest a place for the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to photograph. It was started in January 2010. In the first few months of the program 3000 people signed up to use HiRISE. The first images were released in April 2010. Over 12,000 suggestions were made by the public; suggestions were made for targets in each of the 30 quadrangles of Mars. Selected images released were used for three talks at the 16th Annual International Mars Society Convention. Below are some of the over 4,224 images that have been released from the HiWish program as of March 2016. Glacial features Some landscapes look just like glaciers moving out of mountain valleys on Earth. Some have a hollowed-out appearance, looking like a glacier after almost all the ice has disappeared. What is left are the moraines—the dirt and debris carried by the glacier. The center is hollowed out because the ice is mostly gone. These supposed alp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pedestal Crater
In planetary geology, a pedestal crater is a crater with its ejecta sitting above the surrounding terrain and thereby forming a raised platform (like a pedestal). They form when an impact crater ejects material which forms an erosion-resistant layer, thus causing the immediate area to erode more slowly than the rest of the region. Some pedestals have been accurately measured to be hundreds of meters above the surrounding area. This means that hundreds of meters of material were eroded away. The result is that both the crater and its ejecta blanket stand above the surroundings. Pedestal craters were first observed during the Mariner missions. Description With further study, researchers have divided related craters into three different classes. and have advanced ideas about how they were formed. Excess ejecta craters and perched craters are larger than pedestal craters. All three have similar shapes with the bowl of the crater and an area around the bowl sitting above the surroun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mariner Program
The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the inner Solar System - visiting the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury for the first time, and returning to Venus and Mars for additional close observations. The program included a number of interplanetary firsts, including the first planetary flyby, the planetary orbiter, and the first gravity assist maneuver. Of the 10 vehicles in the Mariner series, seven were successful, forming the starting point for many subsequent NASA/JPL space probe programs. The planned Mariner Jupiter-Saturn vehicles were adapted into the Voyager program, while the Viking program orbiters were enlarged versions of the Mariner 9 spacecraft. Later Mariner-based spacecraft include Galileo and Magellan, while the second-generation Mariner Mark II series evolved into th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impact Crater
An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact craters typically have raised rims and floors that are lower in elevation than the surrounding terrain. Lunar impact craters range from microscopic craters on lunar rocks returned by the Apollo Program and small, simple, bowl-shaped depressions in the lunar regolith to large, complex, multi-ringed impact basins. Meteor Crater is a well-known example of a small impact crater on Earth. Impact craters are the dominant geographic features on many solid Solar System objects including the Moon, Mercury, Callisto, Ganymede and most small moons and asteroids. On other planets and moons that experience more active surface geological processes, such as Earth, Venus, Europa, Io and Titan, visible impact craters are less common because they become eroded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pedestal Crater
In planetary geology, a pedestal crater is a crater with its ejecta sitting above the surrounding terrain and thereby forming a raised platform (like a pedestal). They form when an impact crater ejects material which forms an erosion-resistant layer, thus causing the immediate area to erode more slowly than the rest of the region. Some pedestals have been accurately measured to be hundreds of meters above the surrounding area. This means that hundreds of meters of material were eroded away. The result is that both the crater and its ejecta blanket stand above the surroundings. Pedestal craters were first observed during the Mariner missions. Description With further study, researchers have divided related craters into three different classes. and have advanced ideas about how they were formed. Excess ejecta craters and perched craters are larger than pedestal craters. All three have similar shapes with the bowl of the crater and an area around the bowl sitting above the surroun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impact Crater
An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact craters typically have raised rims and floors that are lower in elevation than the surrounding terrain. Lunar impact craters range from microscopic craters on lunar rocks returned by the Apollo Program and small, simple, bowl-shaped depressions in the lunar regolith to large, complex, multi-ringed impact basins. Meteor Crater is a well-known example of a small impact crater on Earth. Impact craters are the dominant geographic features on many solid Solar System objects including the Moon, Mercury, Callisto, Ganymede and most small moons and asteroids. On other planets and moons that experience more active surface geological processes, such as Earth, Venus, Europa, Io and Titan, visible impact craters are less common because they become eroded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular. While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion. While Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years, aside from visits by mountain men during the early-to-mid-19th century, organized exploration did not begin until the late 1860s. Management and control of the park ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marte Vallis
Marte Vallis is a valley in the Amazonis quadrangle of Mars, located at 15 North and 176.5 West. It is 185 km long and was named for the Spanish word for "Mars". It has been identified as an outflow channel, carved in the geological past by catastrophic release of water from aquifers beneath the Martian surface. The surface material is thought to have been created out of 'a'ā and pāhoehoe lava flows from the Elysium volcanic province in the west. Marte Vallis is the site of the first discovery of columnar jointing on Mars.Milazzo, M.P., Keszthelyi, L.P., Jaeger, W.L. Rosiek, M., Mattson, S., Verba, C., Beyer, R.A., Geissler, P.E., McEwen, A.S., and the HiRISE Team. (2009) Discovery of columnar jointing on Mars. Geology. 37(2), 171–174Abstract/ref> Columnar jointing often forms when basalt lava cools.Bates, R. and J. Jackson (eds.) 1976. Dictionary of Geological Terms. Doubleday, New York. File:Marte Vallis Island.JPG, Streamlined Island in Marte Vallis, as se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columnar Jointing
Columnar jointing is a geological structure where sets of intersecting closely spaced fractures, referred to as Joint (geology), joints, result in the formation of a regular array of polygonal Prism (geometry), prisms, or columns. Columnar jointing occurs in many types of igneous rocks and forms as the rock cools and contracts. Columnar jointing can occur in cooling lava flows and ashflow tuffs (ignimbrites), as well as in some shallow intrusions. Columnar jointing also occurs rarely in sedimentary rocks if they have been heated by nearby hot magma. The columns can vary from 3 meters to a few centimeters in diameter, and can be as much as 30 meters tall. They are typically parallel and straight, but can also be curved and vary in diameter. An array of regular, straight, and larger-diameter columns is called a colonnade; an irregular, less-straight, and smaller-diameter array is termed an entablature. The number of sides of the individual columns can vary from 3 to 8, with 6 sides ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dark Slope Streaks
Dark slope streaks are narrow, avalanche-like features common on dust-covered slopes in the equatorial regions of Mars.Chuang, F.C.; Beyer, R.A.; Bridges, N.T. (2010). Modification of Martian Slope Streaks by Eolian Processes. ''Icarus,'' 205 154–164. They form in relatively steep terrain, such as along escarpments and crater walls.Schorghofer, N.; Aharonson, O.; Khatiwala, S. (2002). Slope Streaks on Mars: Correlations with Surface Properties and the Potential Role of Water. ''Geophys. Res. Lett.,'' 29(23), 2126, . Although first recognized in Viking Orbiter images from the late 1970s,Morris, E.C. (1982). Aureole Deposits of the Martian Volcano Olympus Mons. ''J. Geophys. Res.,'' 87(B2), 1164–1178.Ferguson, H.M.; Lucchitta, B.K. (1984). Dark Streaks on Talus Slopes, Mars in ''Reports of the Planetary Geology Program 1983, NASA Tech. Memo., TM-86246,'' pp. 188–190. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19840015363_1984015363.pdf. dark slope streaks were not s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
