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ESA
This natural-color view of the Danielson and Kalocsa craters and their surroundings in the Arabia Terra region was captured by the High-Resolution Stereo Camera on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter on June 19, 2011.
In honor of science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury's passing, here's a totally non-fictional Martian chronicle: a picture of two craters on the Red Planet that record how the climate has changed over the course of billions of years.
The photo, sent back by the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter and released today, focuses on the Kalocsa and Danielson craters in Mars' Arabia Terra region. Danielson is the larger crater, measuring roughly 38 miles (60 kilometers) across. Kalocsa is smaller (20 miles, or 33 kilometers across) and about a half-mile (1 kilometer) shallower.
The most noticeable features on Danielson's crater floor are the dark, eroded layers of sediments and streamlined hills known as yardangs. In today's photo advisory, ESA's science team explains that the sediments appear to have been cemented by water, possibly from an ancient deep groundwater reservoir, and then were eroded by the wind.
The orientation of the yardangs suggests that strong north-northeasterly winds initially deposited the sediments, and eroded them during a later, drier period of Martian history. Danielson's layers may chronicle fluctuations in the climate of Mars, triggered by changes in the planet's axis of rotation.
In contrast, Kalocsa's crater floor is smooth, with no layered sediments. This may be because the crater is too shallow to have reached the groundwater reservoir, or because the crater was blasted into the Martian surface after the water in the reservoir was lost.
One of Bradbury's best-known books, "The Martian Chronicles," spins tales about the disappearance of an ancient Red Planet civilization. The disappearance of the Red Planet's ancient water is a story worthy of the Ray Bradbury treatment, and fresh chapters of that story are sure to be written after NASA's Mars Science Laboratory lands in Gale Crater in August.
Someday, a crater on Mars may well bear Bradbury's name — but Mars Society President Robert Zubrin had something even grander in mind when he issued a tribute to the author:
"I was saddened today to hear of the death of Ray Bradbury. I first read Bradbury's 'The Martian Chronicles' when I was in elementary school. He was one of those who inspired me, and I'm sure millions of others, with the vision of a new world. While science has since shown nearly all the details of Bradbury's Lowellian Mars to have little relationship to reality, still, I think on a deeper level he was fundamentally right. The human future need not be limited to the Earth. It is from imagination that reality springs. There are no crystalline cities on Mars, yet, but there will be someday. Perhaps one of the first should be named after Ray."
I'm certain that "Bradbury" will be a future destination on Mars, whether it's Bradbury Crater or Bradbury City. What do you think? Feel free to leave your tributes as comments below.
More about Ray Bradbury and Mars:
- The Last Word: Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012
- Science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury dies at 91
- Scientists and sci-fi authors alike mourn Ray Bradbury
- Ray Bradbury foresaw the future — and didn't trust it
- Cosmic Log archive on Mars
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
No reason there can't be both, a crater named after him as well as a city or settlement.
I'm thinking the Ray Bradbury Tunnel, for the train linking Arthur C. Clarkesville with H.G. Wellsburg
And maybe "Barsoomia" could be reached by the new Mars highway.
But I'm not giving up on finding evidence of an ancient civilization on Mars. You take a billion years or so of weak atmosphere and high radiation combined with dry, high winds and erosion and the surface evidence of any ancient civilization can be erased so thoroughly only archeology will find evidence of it's existence.
It will be cool though if we can establish viable colonies on Mars and begin to successfully terraform the planet. I think we should rummaged through ALL the science fiction literature regarding Mars from Wells forward and name streets and roads and communities after the characters featured in those books.
As an ERB fan I'm looking forward to driving down Deja Thoris Lane or Tars Tarkas boulevard or taking a walk in the John Carter national forest.
Looks like a hell of an oil leak in that one crater.
@Alan,
My first modern science fiction book was "Rocket Ship Galieo" in about 1954 or so. So when I discovered Bradbury, my tastes had already been honed by people like Heinlein and Doc Smith. All of these writers did a lot to advance the idea of space travel as a "possible" frame of reference. For that they should be remembered, not just on Mars.
How generous of Ray Bradbury to share his imagination with so many ....
His family and friends should feel honored to have known him ....
To make it to 91 years old is great ....
Blessings to your family and friends Ray Bradbury ....
+
Since the suffix -bury (variation of -borough or -burg) is used in town names, just naming the first Mars settlement "Bradbury" should suffice!
Here's a great perspective image from the ESA. Gives you a good feel for what you are looking at in other photos:
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/marsexpress/556-20120514-10468-3D-DanielsonCrater_H1.jpg
on that note...we as humans as a hole have made a big mistake. we now look at things in a pesimistic way. we say why try.... how foolish. what if we had never tried to learn to fly? or never built the first computer???
think of all the minerals on mars...is there water under the surface? gold? dimonds? something compleatly new? what if there were maisive caves?? underground lakes....even life forms. (to think its just a dead rock is very foolish.) does the earth have caves? how many minerals are on our own world below the cerface? when one metior has more gold of silver then all that has ever been dug up on earth combined it just goes to show why man should move out to the stars and explore. i will make a prediction here and now. fact will be more amazing then fantasy when we do. the universe holds untold discoveries that we can not even begin to dream of. we simply need to try. we waste billions if not trillions on ideas that we have nothing to show for. why not use such money to reach out to the stars. if you were to pole humans as to what the future looks like, most are waiting for the hammer to fall. nukes,fammen, virus,social collaps...most if not all know we are headed down. but why??? why does it have to be that way?? how much more hopeful would we as a world be if we had people exploring space and other worlds?? our children would look at the future in a positive way. (give them and yourself hope....humans need to get there heads out of there butts and start thinking about all the things we CAN do. we used to think that way. when we set our minds to something we can do just about anything. start dreaming again people.
oh, one more thing. planets such as earth are small and without going into space almost impposible to detect for certain. my next prediction is there will be way more of them then sceintists could have drempt of. we will find worlds such as earth and it will be much closer then any of us ever dreamed. the only reason we dont is because we cant as of yet. but they are there. (math says so) mathmatical odds....
Of course it should. Isaac Azimov also, and Clarke. These were gifted visionaries who inspired people to become space scientists and astronauts.
Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Willy Ley, Wernher von Braun, and Walt Disney all instilled in me a lifelong interest in astronomy. I absolutely support naming prominent places after the likes of these.
Apparently the smaller crater gave rise to a lava flow. The even smaller crater in the upper left actually filled with the outflow. OR the impactor happened to hit and destroy the original volcano. The large dark region in the 60 km crater is igneous rock. I'm surprised there was no discussion of it. Maybe Magnetite? Hematite? Ferromagnesian?
I salute Ray Bradbury for feeding our imagination of Mars and space.
When the Spaceports are operational, and we can liftoff as easily as taking a city to city airplane flight, then all the great Science Fiction prognosticators will be recognized for who they truly are/were. Send ME to Barsoom!