http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/public...ts/S08data.html

The number of public target images is very impressive imho. Malin might likt to hang on to his data very tightly, but this campaign of public imaging is to be applauded!

Also - the next 6 months of MOC imagery should be released soon.

Doug

Would someone please explain to me why one person or small group has such control over images that in many cases should be in the public domain? I understand the priorities of scientists, but how is that just because Malin made the camera, he gets to control all the images as well? Where is JPL in all this?

He doesnt get to control all the images at all. Just like any PI - him and his team and invited scientists have access to the raw data for 6 months before going public with it.

Doug

The only problem being that they don't always hit that 6 month period, some releases drag and drag. Still, it's not as frustrating as the ESA website for Mars Express...lucky to get an image a month.

Eric P / MizarKey

Mizar, that is because ESA as to negotiate the publishing of the images directly with the Martian authorities, and you know how Martians, from Slabud to Erguart, can be quite burocratic...
But we, Europeans, try to do our best...

Next batch has arrived:

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/public...ts/S09data.html

What happened to the crater in this picture?

Dam failure??

It's in the process of being uncovered. Once upon a time, there was a crater. The crater was buried. The stuff that buried the crater began eroding away, and that's what we see today. The end.

I entirely disagree.

The land has a near-surface layer of layered sedimentary rock that is much lighter than the rockbeds below it and the upper layer of regolith. That layered rockbed is very visible in the crater wall. (In this, it resembles the craters at Meridiani, which have layered evaporite rockbeds just below a surface layer.)

Some kind of fluvial event has occurred after the crater was formed, which has stripped the upper layers off of the surrounding land, showing distinctive step-like patterns of erosion into flat, layered rockbeds. There are mesas topped with land that looks identical to the plains on the right side of the intact crater wall that occur within this scoured channel-like feature.

As the event that formed the fluvial feature broke through the left side of the crater wall, sediments carried along in the current spilled out sideways, leaving a fan of debris spilling into the crater. This deformed the left rim and probably washed a good deal of it further down the channel. I'd imagine that the crater filled with water as the flood rushed past, and that backflow against the main current caused the fine features we see in the channel boundary as it passes through the left third of the crater.

So, it seems obvious that what we're seeing is a crater that got in the way of a large flood or outflow. It's probably just a tongue of what was a larger, more massive outflow flood event of the kind that carved Chryse Planitia, Ares Valles, and many, many other places on Mars.

-the other Doug

I agree that it's not just a crater that's being uncovered. The whole rim has collapsed. I don't think it's in a tongue of a massive outflow though. The location is just south of Isidis, in the middle of cratered terrain.

MOC-WA:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/public.../S09-00660p.gif

THEMIS-IR:
http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/-I03230002.html

Here's another image of the area: http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r03_r09/im...6/R0600450.html

EDIT: And here's another: http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e19_r02/im...2/R0200246.html

New month, new images. S10:

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/public...ts/S10data.html

The most spectacular/weird one IMHO:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/public.../S10-00793p.gif

S11 is here:

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/public...ts/S11data.html

Another strange texture:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/public.../S11-01047p.gif

S12:

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/public...ts/S12data.html

Weird crater. Spectacular valleys:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/public.../S12-01993p.gif

Juicy!...