Casius Quadrangle - Utopia Planitia, Bacolor, Astapus Colles (Paperback)

Chapters: Utopia Planitia, Bacolor, Astapus Colles. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 18. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The Casius quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The quadrangle is located in the northcentral portion of Mars eastern hemisphere and covers 60 to 120 east longitude (240 to 300 west longitude) and 30 to 65 north latitude. The quadrangle uses a Lambert conformal conic projection at a nominal scale of 1:5,000,000 (1:5M). The Casius quadrangle is also referred to as MC-6 (Mars Chart-6). The southern and northern borders of the Casius quadrangle are approximately 3,065 km and 1,500 km wide, respectively. The north to south distance is about 2,050 km (slightly less than the length of Greenland). The quadrangle covers an approximate area of 4.9 million square km, or a little over 3% of Mars surface area. Casius is the name of a telescopic albedo feature located at 40 N and 100 E on Mars. The feature was named for the Latin epithet for Zeus from his sactuaries in Egypt and Syria. The name was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1958. In high latitude areas there are features that are believed to indicate the presence of ground ice. Patterned ground is one such feature. Usually, polygonal shapes are found poleward of 55 degrees latitude. Another feature associated with ground ice is Scalloped Topography, as seen in image of Periglacial Forms in Utopia. Nilosyrtis runs from about 280 to 304 degrees west longitude, so like several other features, it sits in more than one quadrangle. Part of Nilosyrtis is in Ismenius Lacus, the rest is in Casius. Nilosyrtis is one of the sites proposed as a landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory. Ho...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=21549825