![]() "The National Weather Service does a good job of forecasting," says Berger, “but the information is often less accessible to people not familiar with technical weather jargon.” The site promises "hype-free" forecasts for Houston and beyond, written in layman's terms. We're just two guys writing about the weather."įounded in 2015 by Berger, Space City Weather was created to fill a void. "I'll be honest, it's been a little terrifying. "It's been insane this week," founder and meteorologist Eric Berger tells Bustle. Links to these posts have been shared thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter as people looked for guidance on whether or not to leave their homes and neighborhoods. The site, which is run by two local journalists - Eric Berger, a certified meteorologist, and his partner, Matt Lanza, a forecast meteorologist who used to work in broadcasting - posted round the clock during the storm, updating multiple times a day with flood projections and forecasts, as the situation in Southeast Texas grew ever more volatile. Some clicked on the National Weather Service, or major commercial weather sites but many others checked out Space City Weather, a Houston-area weather blog that received more than a million page views on Sunday alone. Whatever they find with these instruments may tell us more about the rivers that once roared on the Red Planet, aiding the ultimate search for signs of ancient microbial life that may have been preserved in Martian rocks.įor weather, science, space, and COVID-19 updates on the go, download The Weather Channel App (on Android and iOS store).On Sunday, as Hurricane Harvey touched down in Houston, millions of people in Texas and beyond jumped online to find out what was expected of the storm and how they could keep their families safe. We’re thinking about rivers on a different scale than we have before,” said Perseverance’s deputy project scientist, Katie Stack Morgan of JPL. And it’s the first time we’re seeing environments like this on Mars. “What’s exciting here is we’ve entered a new phase of Jezero’s history. They are also digging for information beneath the Martian surface using the ground-penetrating radar instrument on the Perseverance rover. These detailed images have raised more questions, spurring scientists to peer into Mastcam-Z's images for additional clues. Such features are also present on Earth, but are mostly cocooned by vegetation.įrom 'Skrinkle Haven' to 'Pinestand' (the two locations captured in Perseverance’s mosaics), scientists are sure that these markings are the work of a mighty river bustling through the rugged terrain. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)Ī bird's eye view of these meandering rows rippling out across the crater's expanse suggests they could be river bank remnants shifting with sands of time or sandbars (sediment islands) that formed in the river. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this mosaic of a hill nicknamed “Pinestand.” Scientists think the tall sedimentary layers stacked on top of one another here could have been formed by a deep, fast-moving river. Coarse sediment grains and cobbles, have led scientists to believe that it is, in fact, the latter! Two significant clues hiding in hundreds of images sent by Percy, viz. These curves resemble traces that water would leave while slithering through slopes.īut the pressing question is how intensely water flowed down these slopes - was it a meek shallow stream as suggested by Curiosity on the Gale Crater or a wild river system decimating everything in its path? Percy has been exploring the curves atop the 820-foot-tall fan-shaped pile of sedimentary rock to give a clearer picture of the relics of Mars' ancient watery world. Incidentally, the Jezero Crater falls in the same region the Perseverance has been traipsing for nearly two years. This ancient river was part of waterway networks that flowed into Jezero Crater, a site scientists had dubbed the 'curvilinear unit' years ago - inspired by the serpentine bands that dotted the landscape. Images taken by our resident Mars photographer, nicknamed Percy, have presented fresh evidence of a deeper and fast-moving Martian river that's making scientists rethink what watery environments looked like on ancient Mars. NASA's Perseverance rover has encountered imprints of a boisterous river that once frolicked about the jagged Martian terrain!
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