A Candidate Landing Site over Potential Chloride Salt Deposits
There is an intriguing surface unit in parts of the ancient Martian highlands that may consist of chloride salts (like NaCl, or table salt) which precipitated out of shallow lakes as in desert regions of Earth.
It has unusual thermal properties and distinctive morphologies, but lacks spectral absorption bands. All of these characteristics and the geologic settings are consistent with salt deposits. These deposits are often associated with clay minerals that do have distinctive absorption bands.
Image cutout is less than 1 km (under 1 mi) across and the spacecraft altitude was 266 km (165 mi). For full observation details including images with scale bars, visit the source link.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
A Candidate Landing Site over Potential Chloride Salt Deposits
There is an intriguing surface unit in parts of the ancient Martian highlands that may consist of chloride salts (like NaCl, or table salt) which precipitated out of shallow lakes as in desert regions of Earth.
It has unusual thermal properties and distinctive morphologies, but lacks spectral absorption bands. All of these characteristics and the geologic settings are consistent with salt deposits. These deposits are often associated with clay minerals that do have distinctive absorption bands.
Image cutout is less than 1 km (under 1 mi) across and the spacecraft altitude was 266 km (165 mi). For full observation details including images with scale bars, visit the source link.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona