Mars Proposal

Core A

Introduction

Do all channels on Mars lead away from craters and into basins?

We think our question is important because the northern part of Mars may have held a large body of water at one point, and channels may have drained into it.

Background

Channels occur in many regions of Mars as a result of water erosion. Some are as large as sixty miles wide and over one thousand miles long. Enormous floods that rushed across the surface might have carved certain channels. Whatever water was present seemed to have escaped underground. Some channels do not look like river systems.

While some channels on the surface of Mars are believed to have been formed by running water, streams of ice may have carved others. Channels in one region of Mars share a number of key characteristics with those created by ice steams that flow beneath Antarctica's surface on Earth and empty into the surrounding ocean.

Warrego Valles

42.35,276.5E

Experiment Design

We will receive our data from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on Mars Odyssey, and we will also use images from the THEMIS gallery. Our specific landform topic we want to look at is channels. We want to focus on the Southern Hemisphere.

Analysis Plan

We will compare the new THEMIS image of channels to those images from the gallery to look for relationships between channels, basins, and craters. Our results will be displayed in a pie graph representing those channels that we observed flowing from craters and into basins, those that only flowed into basins, those that flowed from craters, and those that showed no connection to either craters or basins.

Conclusion

Do all Channels lead away from craters and into basins?

We think our question is important because the northern part of Mars may have been a large body of water at one point, and channels might have drained into it. We think you should accept our proposal because it helps us learn something new and it could help you get new information for your Mars studies.

References

World Book Millenium 2000 (M13)

www.space.com/scienceeastromnom/SolarSystem/mars_ice_010117.htm