Originally Posted By: Mike Kremer
I was of the opinion that it was the white substance which had evaporated....Having found a later picture I am not so sure now.
The objects are bottom left, but in the shade, yet the sunlit
white (salt/C02/ice??)material is still there. Adding to the mystery.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080621.htmlCO2 would evaporate easier, but....
I'm wondering if the scraped white surfaces are the exposed top of a large mass of ice, which would keep it cold enough to not evaporate (maybe?), or even keep replenishing the substance. There are some changes. That left-handed semi-circular area near the top of the left trench looks more like wetted soil in the later picture. Maybe mold will start growing.
They just look like rock that fell in, off of the side; but....
My thought was that the "discs" which evaporated, were broken chunks, scraped off of the white areas that we see near the top. These fell out of the final scoop, I'm thinking; and not being connected to the cold sub-surface mass anymore, evaporated more easily. Also, I bet as the sol (day) progresses, they would come into direct sunlight too.
IMHO
Hey!
Hasn't a rock moved, ...in the center (slightly above left of center)? It's the one with a distinct shadow on the lower right-hand side. That lump has move lower, relative to the other lumps.
p.s. Maybe the soil subsides somewhat sol-ly.
