A surprising discovery this week perplexed NASA researchers and the scientific community after the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted craters with mysterious and unidentified shapes.
The spacecraft's HiRise camera took images of the structures situated in Arabia Terra in the northern part of Mars, as reported by NASA through HiRise team member Paul Geissler relayed who noted that the craters "contain strange deposits with mysterious shapes and distribution."
Mysterious Crater Deposits
Mysterious Martian Crater Deposits
The discovery has scientists fascinated, as shown by the spectacular photographs taken by MRO's HiRise camera. The team suggests that the brilliant patterns etched into the Martian surface may be the permanent traces left behind by Martian ice heated by the Sun, providing a fascinating window into the extensive and water-rich history of Mars.
Only craters on the northern plains of Arabia Terra were found to harbor the mysterious deposits, Futurism reported. Arabia Terra is a sizable and severely eroded and cratered region north of the Martian equator.
Craters with a diameter of more than 600 meters contain oddly-shaped deposits, while craters with a diameter of 450 meters or less do not have any. The deposits have layers or terrace-like horizontal laminations. and are on the south side of the craters. Scientists found that the sediments include microscopic, brilliant ridges that form radial striations.
"The deposits have horizontal laminations that could be layers or terraces," Geissler wrote. "The deposits also have radial striations formed by small bright ridges."
They believe that ice-rich material sublimated to create these strange shapes, representing various sublimation epochs. Scientists believe that water once flooded Mars which was turned into ice over billions of years and slowly seeped into the planet's dry surface. They hypothesized that the largest craters were flooded with water up to 45 to 60 meters below the surface that formed the deposits.
The Sound of Dust on Mars
Although scientists theorize that Mars was abundant with water billions of years ago, like Earth, today's Red Planet is so dry that they have yet to find water on it. Due to its dryness and windy conditions, rovers sent on the Red Planet have to battle the dust and wind to keep on operating.
NASA has released the sound of a dust devil on the Martian surface last week, Indian Express reported. The Perseverance Rover's microphone was turned on by chance when a whirling tower of Martian dust passed directly overhear. The rover recorded 10 seconds of rumbling winds that are approximately moving at 40 kilometers per hour along with thousands of dust particles that hit the rover.
The American space agency released the audio after it bottled up two Martian dust samples. It is unlike the rock samples that Perseverance rover collected before as the dust was taken from a pile of wind-blown sand from a small dune. The samples could be sent to Earth within the decade as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign of NASA.
RELATED ARTICLE: Perseverance Rover Revolted by Martian Dust Storm; Enigmatic Audio Recording Might Reveal Extreme Weather on Red Planet
Check out more news and information on Mars in Science Times.