Clouds? Options

[jmknapp]

Was looking at some MGS imagery:



Kind of a low-contrast scene with some darker splotches here and there. Running that through an equalizing filter gives this image:



Some surprising detail brought out there--it looks to me like there are small clouds casting shadows on the surface. Can that be right? They could be little hills I suppose.

[dvandorn]

I dunno -- look at the semi-regular spacing. Personally, I think you've discovered the dust clouds kicked up by the annual thoat drives into the great abattoires of Helium...

-the other Doug

[jmknapp]

I dunno -- look at the semi-regular spacing. Personally, I think you've discovered the dust clouds kicked up by the annual thoat drives into the great abattoires of Helium...

Looks somewhat less than semi-regular to me, if that isn't an oxymoron! Anyway, what do you think might cause semi-regular artifacts (other than said helium)?

BTW, here's the location of the image (arrow) on a map of water-ice cloud opacity predicted for early northern summer:



*from Malin et al, "Climate, weather, and north polar observations from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Color Imager," Icarus 194 (2008)

So it seems to be in the area of likely suspects at least, on the north slope of the plateau of the Tharsis volcanoes. The striations near the top of the image are part of Ceraunius Fossae. A paper, THE SEASONAL BEHAVIOR OF WATER ICE CLOUDS IN THE THARSIS AND VALLES MARINERIS REGIONS OF MARS: MARS ORBITER CAMERA OBSERVATIONS noted clouds in this area:

Clouds were also seen around 12° S latitude, 100° W longitude, in the region of Syria Planum, near 27° N latitude, 107° W longitude, near Ceraunius Fossae at 26° N latitude, 93° W longitude...