Avalanche!
NASA scientists have captured images of actual, active avalanches - on Mars.
Pasadena, Calif. - A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet's north pole. The image shows tan clouds billowing away from the foot of a towering slope, where ice and dust have just cascaded down.
The High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the photograph Feb. 19. It is one of approximately 2,400 HiRISE images being released today.
Ingrid Daubar Spitale of the University of Arizona, Tucson, who works on targeting the camera and has studied hundreds of HiRISE images, was the first person to notice the avalanches. "It really surprised me," she said. "It's great to see something so dynamic on Mars. A lot of what we see there hasn't changed for millions of years."
The camera is looking repeatedly at selected places on Mars to track seasonal changes. However, the main target of the Feb. 19 image was not the steep slope.
"We were checking for springtime changes in the carbon-dioxide frost covering a dune field, and finding the avalanches was completely serendipitous," said Candice Hansen, deputy principal investigator for HiRISE, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
All of the images are available here. One has to wonder what triggered the avalanches. Martian skiers?
By feeblemind, Tuesday, 4 March , 2008 @ 7:27 am
Martian skiers? Yet another question for Martian to respond to.
By Larry Sheldon, Tuesday, 4 March , 2008 @ 9:39 am
Global warming caused it silly!
By Giles Smith, Tuesday, 4 March , 2008 @ 9:44 am
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 Derek, Tuesday, 4 March , 2008 @ 1:01 pm
I have no doubt that this catastrophe is directly attributable to Global Warming!! (sorry i couldn’t resist)
By sam, Tuesday, 4 March , 2008 @ 2:10 pm
Snowboarders, not skiers, doing the half pipe.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Tuesday, 4 March , 2008 @ 4:46 pm
One has to wonder what triggered the avalanches. Martian skiers?
I blame global warming. Or maybe it was the Iraq war. Or maybe Karl Rove was responsible (Red Planet - advisor to red state candudates - geddit?).