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Martian chaos terrain

91 points by tiagod ago | 25 comments

Gravityloss |next [-]

99% of scifi papers over these things. Somehow people always land in nice flat areas. Aliens' ground vehicle was modified from an airport tow truck. Talking about convenient flat land.

Even on Earth, with weather and generous erosion, large portions of land are very dense forests or very rough mountains.

ceejayoz |root |parent |next [-]

> Somehow people always land in nice flat areas.

Well, yeah. You pick those.

It's why Blue Origin does their tourist flights out in the desert.

We've even found some specific such sites. Forest coverage turns out to be a very minor issue on Mars.

https://www.space.com/nasa-perseverance-mars-rover-sample-re...

selljamhere |root |parent |next |previous [-]

One of the 1%. Alien famously starts with the crew of the Nostromo (a space mining rig) riding a transport down to an uninhabited moon where the transport of this mining vessel is damaged by... landing on a rock.

dmurray |root |parent [-]

And Luke Skywalker's spaceship crash landed in a swamp.

That's two of the most famous sci-fi franchises in the world, so I don't think sci-fi creators are as guilty of ignoring this possibility as GP seems to think.

altmanaltman |root |parent |previous [-]

Tbf if you were an alien landing on earth, there's plenty of smooth flat surfaces available. If you can pick your landing spot, why would you pick dense forests or very rough mountains? Same logic when we land on other planets

alistairSH |root |parent |next [-]

So many Home Depot parkings lots to choose from, hopefully the analysis-paralysis thwarts their invasion plans.

ErroneousBosh |root |parent |previous [-]

> there's plenty of smooth flat surfaces available

Any supermarket car park, for a start.

Plus it would be handy for picking groceries so you can have a cup of tea and something to eat while you figure out how you're going to invade.

wronex |next |previous [-]

Did someone perhaps come here after watching Sebastian Lague’s pen plotter video?

https://youtu.be/qyNWDzO6kKQ

There is a brief mention of chaos terrain while he searches the surface of Mars for an interesting plot.

tiagod |root |parent [-]

That video was indeed where I found out about this!

ozyschmozy |next |previous [-]

I've been reading the Mars trilogy (by Kim Stanley Robinson) after it was recommended on an HN thread a while back, and it's been on my mind to look into what the "chaos" was. Pretty neat

omnicognate |root |parent [-]

"Badlands of Aram Chaos" itself sounds like a sci fi title. Also, the picture of it in the "Gallery" section is cool and visually confusing. I'm struggling not to see a smooth, reflecting water surface in it, that can't possibly be there.

Edit: I think it's an aerial picture, but my brain insists on seeing it as one taken from the surface.

andai |root |parent [-]

Yeah, I was just looking at that. What the heck. It's aerial?

Reminds me of "name one thing in this picture"

hodder |next |previous [-]

Fascincating article. Also a cool band name.

jakzurr |next |previous [-]

Holy smokes, what a rabbit hole. Saving this link for late night reading.

andrewrn |next |previous [-]

Perfect Hacker News link :)

tiagod |root |parent [-]

I thought the same! Thank dang for putting this in the second-chance pool (without my intervention).

Razengan |next |previous [-]

Man there's so much cool shit to see out in the universe if we can only get our crap sorted for long enough to get our ass off our home.

tokai |next |previous [-]

I'm surprised that we do not have any chaos terrain on Earth. Can't find any explanation why. We have had large sudden flood events on Earth, but maybe weathering orders the 'chaos' over time?

card_zero |root |parent |next [-]

The suggested mechanism is that sedimentary rocks form over ice. That puzzles me in itself, because it implies a river with ice at the bottom. But anyway, then some heat source arrives and melts the ice, causing a sort of rug pull that means the rock layer drops down and breaks up. Kaboom.

ycombinete |root |parent |next [-]

At first I thought perhaps it was a non-h20 liquid, since that would explain the frozen bits on the bottom.

Bit apparently it’s more banal, and sediment doesn’t need a river or a liquid at all. It’s any kind of deposit. So wind can deposit sedimen, volcanic ash is sediment glaciers deposit it etc.

petsfed |root |parent |previous [-]

I think the most likely case for sedimentary deposition over ice would be something like volcanic eruption or an impact event redepositing material onto pre-existing ice.

1970-01-01 |root |parent |next |previous [-]

We almost certainly did at one point, but life and tides can fill-in the gaps. We also truly do not know what terrain is underneath Antarctica, Greenland, etc.

eastbound |root |parent |previous [-]

I didn't understand, how is that dissimilar to mountains? Large tilted blocks, hundreds of meters high, hills and depressions...

sandworm101 |previous [-]

Another fun mars fact: The first image from the surface was made using crayons.

https://science.nasa.gov/resource/first-tv-image-of-mars-han...