Enhancements copyright (C) Marcia L. Peters, all rights reserved

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 Dark Streaks that Appear to Cast a Shadow

Latitude 9.35°
Longitude 181.78°
Edge of Marte Vallis 'channel' or 'flow' in contact with knob
NASA Catalog:  http://ida.wr.usgs.gov/html/fha012/fha01240.html

Click on any image below for a full-resolution jpeg image of the same area

MOC Image Viking 
Context
Image
Viking 
Color 
Context 
Image
Resolution 4.31 m



Enhancements

This is a composite of the two adjacent MOC images above. 

The dark streaks in this picture are quite unusual.

1.  Notice that they are mostly in pairs, and both elements of the pair are the same shape -- as if the lower shape is a shadow of the upper shape.

2.  The shadows, if that's what they are, seem to ignore the contours of the sloping interior crater wall.

3.  One of the streaks passes right through a small crater. 

If these streaks were dark-colored  windblown sand, or dark mineral particles eroding and moving down slope, their path would be altered by obstacles in the way, such as the small crater, but this is not the case.

Ruling out the obvious explanations, we are left with a truly bizarre possibility

Is there a sheet of some transparent material covering this entire crater? 

Are the streaks marks or scratches on that transparent sheet, or streaks of sand blown by the wind across the transparent sheet?

Are the streaks the remains of some sort of now-dilapidated structural members?

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