Saturday, September 29, 2007

Intriguing - A Hole in Mars Close Up

Mars has so many earth-like characteristics

click on image to enlarge Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

Explanation: In a close-up from the HiRISE instrument onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, this mysterious dark pit, about 150 meters across, lies on the north slope of ancient martian volcano Arsia Mons. Lacking raised rims and other impact crater characteristics, this pit and others like it were originally identified in visible light and infrared images from the Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. While the visible light images showed only darkness within, infrared thermal signatures indicated that the openings penetrated deep under the martian surface and perhaps were skylights to underground caverns. In this later image, the pit wall is partially illuminated by sunlight and seen to be nearly vertical, though the bottom, at least 78 meters below, is still not visible. The dark martian pits are thought to be related to collapse pits in the lava flow, similar to Hawaiian volcano pit craters.

5 comments:

vjack said...

Cool. I'm not sure I agree with the explanation you posted though. Couldn't this be a sign that Jee-zuhs is about to return to rapture all the evangelicals away to Mars? I don't have any evidence for this possibility, so it must be true.

CyberKitten said...

It could be where the Martian Air Defence launches their missiles that keep knocking down our probes [grin].

Stardust said...

Actually, there is life on Mars and Martians live underground and these holes are portals for their flying saucers to come and go on their visits and explorations of the Arizona desert and other places on Earth. :-S

Tommykey said...

NOW we know where Jimmy Hoffa was buried!

SouthLoopScot said...

That is a really cool photo.
Thanks for posting it!