The
"Canals" of Mars? No. But our forefathers weren't all that incorrect...
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NASA |
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As it turns out, the
astronomers and fiction writers of the past centuries would have been remarkably
accurate had they written about the ancient rivers, canyons, and gullies of Mars,
instead of "canals". Within the past twenty years, the acquisition of
abundant high-resolution photographic imagery from low orbit has yielded
compelling evidence of the impact of wind and water erosion on the Martian
surface. Public access to this intriguing photographic database has been made easy via
the Internet, thanks to the hard-working scientists at NASA, the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, and Malin Space Science Systems, among others. From these public
domain sources, Vision Exploration has collected a few compelling images that
illustrate the inexorable forces of erosion that have reshaped much of the
surface of the Red Planet. From a geological perspective, Mars represents a
compelling subject to study, free from the camouflaging cover of vegetation,
urban areas, and clouds (aside from the occasional dust storm). Regardless of
locale, the erosional forces that reshape
the surface of the planets and moons in our Solar System are universal in
nature, and fascinating to observe.
Provided below is a photographic gallery
of selected Mars images. To study more images of the surface of Mars, we
highly recommend the
Mars Global Surveyor / Mars Orbiter Camera website,
from which these images were first obtained. You will find that
website to contain a comprehensive library of Mars photographs. All of the
images shown are in the public domain. Simply click on a "thumbnail" to
view a full-sized image; then click the "Back to Photo Gallery" button at
the bottom of each image to return to the Photo Gallery shown below, or
simply scroll up or down through the Photo Gallery until you find the
picture that you want to observe.
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