T16 RADAR SAR Swath, Land o' lakes |
T16 RADAR SAR Swath, Land o' lakes |
Jul 24 2006, 09:33 PM
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 3242 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 |
Much to my surprise, a chunk of the T16 Sar swath as been released:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08630 An abundance of lakes can been seen. Some appear to be crater lakes (or sinkholes), like the lake at far left on the top cutout. That lake appears similar to Crater Lake in Oregon, with a little island in the middle (you can kinda see the attenuation of the signal surrounding the island as the methane gets deeper). Some lakes appear quite distinctive from the surrounding terrain, like the features on the right part of the bottom cutout. -------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
The Gish Bar Times - A Blog all about Jupiter's Moon Io |
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Jul 25 2006, 02:08 AM
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 3242 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 |
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to search for specular glints in the polar regions. I think our farthest south data point is 53 S from Rev09 last June. We can search for specular glints using the altimeter, if we were to fly right over a lake, like during T38 (or T39, can never remember which) when we fly directly over Ontario Lacus.
BTW, there seems to be some confusion over the liquid state of Ontario Lacus. Ontario is a dark, footprint-shaped feature in the south polar region. The shape of the margin and its location in an area where clouds have been observed has led to the suggestion that it maybe a lacustrine feature. Based on data currently available, we can not tell if there are currently liquids in the lake or if it is a playa instead. Doesn't mean we know either way. It could be lake currently filled with liquids, it could be a mud flat. We don't know. However, I think the picture is emerging that the lakes we see in RADAR were last filled with liquids last northern summer during the rainy season and that since the onset of winter in the region, these lakes are either evaporating or emptying into underground reservoirs. Some of these lakes reside in basins only partly filled with "liquid" (for the rest of this post, liquid stands in for RADAR-smooth material at high latitudes) with no apparent topography confining the location of the liquids into a subsection of the basin. Perhaps these lakes were filled in summer, and are now emptying thanks to the decade-long dry season. The antarctic lakes have now filled up from 5 years of monsoon rains, so it would be interesting to compare them to the arctic lakes when RADAR views them in T38 (or T39). -------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
The Gish Bar Times - A Blog all about Jupiter's Moon Io |
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