NASA ’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter ( MRO ) has discovered a brand - new volcanic crater on the surface of Mars . The team suspect a solid rock probably around 1.5 meters ( 5 feet ) wide arrive at the Red Planet in a area called Sinai Planum , just to the south of the most telling canyon in the solar organisation : the Valles Marineris . The volcanic crater shape sometime between September 2016 and February 2019 .
The picture was captured by the High - Resolution Imaging Science Experiment ( HiRISE ) onboard the MRO . Theenhanced colour imageshows dark run and a dismal feature on the wan crimson terrain of Mars . Before you say it looks like an anus like some haveonline , we would urge a visit to the medico to elucidate what incisively those blue and pitch-dark streaks are .
The jokes have been predictable , and non - contain .
For now , world-wide scientist are fight with the origin of the darker region in the image . CRISM , the other instrument onboard MRO that could have worked out the typography , is past its plan life . It had a poor resolution than HiRISE and must have further deteriorated when it ran out of coolant .
Space.com interview HiRISE team fellow member and University of Arizona stave scientist Dr Veronica Bray regarding the new volcanic crater . She suggests that the black material is likely basalt , establish our knowledge of the region and Mars ’ geology . The grim parts might be water methamphetamine hydrochloride .
“ While the crater was shell in the Valles Marineris neighborhood , near the comparatively warm Martian equator , it ’s potential there could be a little ice underneath the junk , ” Bray toldSpace.com .
Researchers antecedently suggested thatthe streaks of materialwe see extend away from the center of craters on Mars are stimulate by powerful tornado - strength winds scoring the open as they move . The winds can give velocity of up to 800 km ( 500 mile ) per hour and , in experiments in the lab , seem to be affected by the composing of the terrain .
The winds that scour the control surface are made of water vapour trapped either in the impactor or in the soil beneath it . It ’s potential the streak might give us a path to study the composition of cratered regions indirectly .
[ H / T : Space.com ]
