The rivers on Mars



Reull Vellis - region of Mars, a structure similar to the following from the river bed, which is filmed spacecraft "Mars Express." Scientists believe that this structure is formed due to the flow of water in the distant past of the Red Planet. The stream flowing near the hill Prometheus Terra, directed to a large swimming pool and Hella left a fuzzy channel banks. Last year, the unit was able to photograph the amazing upper part Reull Vellis and make clear high-resolution images using a stereo camera. This winding structure, which stretches almost 1,500 kilometers, crosses the Martian landscape. To channel adjoins a large number of tributaries, one of which is clearly visible in the area of ​​the main valleys in the north it chasti.

Computer simulation image of the Martian rivers, made on the basis of data obtained apparatus "Mars Express" The picture shows the place Reull Vellis where naked channel reaches nearly 7 kilometers wide and 300 meters deep. The banks of the river of the former is particularly steep and slightly flattened, as if the treated water, with parallel lines extending along the bottom. There are suggestions that these lines are formed when the flow freely moved clastic rocks and chunks of ice in the Amazonian epoch period (which continues to this day), when the channel was moving along the ice potok.

The main channel - part Reull Vellis with the influx of (right), which encircles the hill Prometheus Terra However, this channel was formed by liquid water long before that, in Gesperiyskuyu era which, according to the researchers, came to an end 3, 5, 1, 8 billion years ago. Similar patterns were found lined many nearby craters. In the picture, taken from a height, it is clear that the flow that crosses the main channel, as it turns out, is bifurcated, two of its branches are connected to one before the inflow connected to the main kanalom.

This same image in color, showing the height of the terrain in the northern part of the image is visible hill Prometheus Terra mountains which rise to a height of 2,500 meters above the surrounding valleys. Top view Reull Vellis shows a striking resemblance to the morphology of the earth's terrain, which was influenced by glaciers. For example, we can see a line similar to the following on the level, on the inner walls of the crater filled with sediments in the foreground. Researchers believe it is the next level of the water (liquid or solid), which gradually, step by step, and left evaporates in different periods vremeni.

Hill Prometheus Terra nearest crater, within which traces of water levels or ice structure Reull Vellis suggests that this area is complex and varied history, similar to what we observe in the world in the area of ​​activity of glaciers. These analogies allow geologists to imagine the distant past of the Red Planet. The researchers are convinced that many of the events on Mars are not too different from the events that have taken place in the world. Where did the water on Mars?

Blue area - alleged Martian ocean. Yellow, red and green areas - the valley formed by water streams flowing from the south to the ocean in the north According to one version, the water disappeared from Mars caused by the solar wind. This wind is a stream of charged particles that reaches all the objects in our solar system. The solar wind could destroy the atmosphere of Mars, which is why the water was gone. Studies have shown that the solar wind can penetrate deeply into the atmosphere of the Red Planet and take with him into space about 1 kilogram of material every second! Apparently, after many millions of years virtually all the water so just uletuchilas.

This image, like a fingerprint, was filmed in the area of ​​Valles Marineris. It is expected that this form of the landscape has taken due evaporated once water on Mars today simply can not exist open water and freely flowing rivers because of the specific environmental conditions. Air Mars is almost 95 per cent is made up of carbon dioxide and the pressure of this air is very small compared with the earth (0, 006 the earth's atmosphere). In this scenario, the pond would be immediately frozen, and solar radiation to evaporate all the water.

Source: www.infoniac.ru/news/Otkuda-vzyalis-reki-na-Marse-i-kuda-oni-propali.html

Tags

See also

New and interesting