Astronomy Picture of the Day 5-13-02

NASA ^ | 5-13-02 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2002 May 13

White Rock Fingers on Mars
Credit: THEMIS, Mars Odyssey Team, ASU, JPL, NASA

Explanation: What caused this unusual white rock formation on Mars? Intrigued by the possibility that they could be salt deposits left over as an ancient lakebed dried-up, detailed studies of these fingers now indicate a more mundane origin: volcanic ash. Studying the exact color of the formation indicated the volcanic origin. The light material appears to have eroded away from surrounding area, indicating a very low-density substance consistent with the ash hypothesis. The stark contrast between the rocks and the surrounding sand is compounded by the unusual darkness of the sand. The above picture was taken with the Thermal Emission Imaging System on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft currently orbiting Mars. The image spans about 10 kilometers inside a much larger crater.

[petuniasevan]

Mars Odyssey has now been in orbit around the Red Planet for 202 days. The problems with the martian radiation environment experiment were resolved 2 months ago, and the spacecraft has been returning valuable data daily.

The Mars Odyssey mission is scheduled to continue through August 2004. Images like this infrared photo are streaming in constantly.

Get on the APOD PING list!

[petuniasevan]

APOD PING!

[petuniasevan]

[aomagrat]

Salt or ash? They're both bad for my blood pressure.

[claptrap]

Richard C. Hoagland will definitely connect this with some civilization which he claims is us that some how weve migrated from Mars after ruining the planet with our technology and now were here to ruin this one. Also that the government is covering all this up because if the population discovered that we were from Mars we would all go beserk as if we werent already.

[RightWhale]

Not to join with the tinfoil crowd, but has anyone noticed how the daily Odessey IR images always seem to focus on the visually least interesting features?