Mars - the iconic Syrtis Major & Hellas Basin and a rapidly shrinking SPC (Niall MacNeill)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Mars - the iconic Syrtis Major & Hellas Basin and a rapidly shrinking SPC

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Mars - the iconic Syrtis Major & Hellas Basin and a rapidly shrinking SPC

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

I made a series of 6 RGB captures of Mars, under quite good seeing conditions to produce this image of Mars.

The iconic Syrtis Major is just on the f side of the CM and to its south is, of course, the Hellas Basin, which has now resumed its more normal golden colour after many weeks/ months of obscuration by clouds of dust. The southern border of the basin is not as well defined as the rest of this largely circular basin suggesting that some dust is present there.

To the north of the Hellas Basin is Mare Hadriacum. There are clearly dust clouds right across this albedo area and they appear to have defined bands in places. Some fingers of these dust clouds appear to encroach on the Hellas Basin.

Towards the ever shrinking SPC there is more evidence that cascades are in progress and the rapid sublimation of CO2 is, it seems, driving wind borne dust in the f and p directions. The SPC clearly has two parts and the island sitting to the north at the CM is the famous Mountains of Mitchel.

Overall, it seems that the dust clouds remain localised and will probably dissipate in the coming weeks, which hopefully augurs well for the planet's atmosphere being transparent by opposition in October.

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Mars - the iconic Syrtis Major & Hellas Basin and a rapidly shrinking SPC

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