New Mars Forums

Official discussion forum of The Mars Society and MarsNews.com

You are not logged in.

Announcement

Announcement: This forum is accepting new registrations by emailing newmarsmember * gmail.com become a registered member. Read the Recruiting expertise for NewMars Forum topic in Meta New Mars for other information for this process.

#1 2007-05-25 16:41:06

noosfractal
Member
From: Biosphere 1
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 824
Website

Re: The Caverns of Mars

PSP_003647_1745_RED_4m_med.jpg

http://planetary.org/blog/article/00000984

Today's set of image releases from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE team included this one, of a fairly bland-looking lava plain to the northeast of Arsia Mons. Bland, that is, except for a black spot in the center. What's that black spot? It's a window onto an underground world.
...

PSP_3647_1745_cut_b_lg.jpg

At its highest resolution of 25 centimeters per pixel, the HiRISE camera can see the detailed shape of the slightly scalloped edge of a hole on the flank of Mars' Arsia Mons (left), but no amount of image enhancement (right) can bring out any further details inside the hole. That means that the walls of the cave are overhanging -- the cave is larger below the ground than the entrance we can see at the surface -- and that it is very deep. Mars' dusty atmosphere produces enough scattered light that "skylight" would illuminate the floor of a shallow cavern well enough for HiRISE to detect it.
...


Fan of [url=http://www.red-oasis.com/]Red Oasis[/url]

Offline

#2 2007-05-25 17:49:05

cIclops
Member
Registered: 2005-06-16
Posts: 3,230

Re: The Caverns of Mars

Nice images. Maybe that's where Beagle 2 went smile


[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond -  triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space]  #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps]   - videos !!![/url]

Offline

#3 2007-05-25 22:16:04

noosfractal
Member
From: Biosphere 1
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 824
Website

Re: The Caverns of Mars

Nice images. Maybe that's where Beagle 2 went smile

big_smile

Can't wait to find out more about them, could be good as the basis for a pressurized town.  Also implies the existence of structures like lava tubes.


Fan of [url=http://www.red-oasis.com/]Red Oasis[/url]

Offline

#4 2007-05-27 01:40:48

cIclops
Member
Registered: 2005-06-16
Posts: 3,230

Re: The Caverns of Mars

Could be the eroded end of a vertical lava tube. This image shows clear evidence for lava tubes.


[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond -  triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space]  #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps]   - videos !!![/url]

Offline

#5 2007-05-27 03:57:27

noosfractal
Member
From: Biosphere 1
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 824
Website

Re: The Caverns of Mars

Could be the eroded end of a vertical lava tube. This image shows clear evidence for lava tubes.

Thanks, I missed that one.  Lava tubes could be quite large on Mars.  Now if only we can find one with a convenient underground frozen lake of water nearby  smile


Fan of [url=http://www.red-oasis.com/]Red Oasis[/url]

Offline

#6 2007-06-05 18:23:47

dicktice
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: The Caverns of Mars

Very funny, you jokers ... but this here is something really unexpected, about whch I find it amazing that no reference to "the caverns of Mars" has yet found its way into the daily press, television, or radio international talk-show overnight rebroadcasts.

What could've caused those almost perfectly circular, cliff-edged holes, the size of small impact craters in the vicinity of several but without the requisite ridges, and in fact showing no visible relationship to their surrounding surface terrain features?

These unexpected (I assume) cavern discoveries should be followed-up immediately by revising currently planned mission instrumentation, where feasible. for use in low Mars orbit, and on surface rovers guided in stages right to the brink of at least one cavern, for the purpose of lowering multispectral high-definition binocular television packages down into it.

Are there more of these things elsewhere on Mars, now that we know what to look for?

Offline

#7 2007-06-07 11:19:04

Number04
Member
From: Calgary Alberta Canada
Registered: 2002-09-24
Posts: 162

Re: The Caverns of Mars

Offline

#8 2007-06-08 14:17:25

dicktice
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: The Caverns of Mars

Although not obvious, because of being on the shady side of the hole selected to show no bottom--even at maximum contrast--by enlarging the image broken cliffs can just be discerned all the way around the edge of the hole. The thickness at the edge, compared with the hole diameter of only 100 meters, must be only 10 meters or so. I'd like to see the edges enlarged even more to observe even more detail in the ragged overhangs jutting out over the black opening. I can't help wondering why there seems to be no mention of these black holes in the news media?

Offline

#9 2007-06-08 15:31:23

cIclops
Member
Registered: 2005-06-16
Posts: 3,230

Re: The Caverns of Mars

There was a whole story about it somewhere.

smile


[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond -  triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space]  #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps]   - videos !!![/url]

Offline

#10 2007-06-08 20:29:59

dicktice
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: The Caverns of Mars

Yes ... but where in the popular media? Look at the front-page coverage the "oceans of Mars" hypothesis is getting, which places them at over two billion years ago. Contrast this with the lack of coverage of the black hole discoveries--the hypothesized  "cavern skylights"-- which are current, and thus of vital interest to mission planners as potential colony locations to be investigated as soon as possible.

Offline

#11 2007-07-01 11:09:28

dicktice
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: The Caverns of Mars

Why are all of these holes so circular? Lava tubes are generally parallel with the terrain, so localized cave-ins would be elongated, or at least oval rather than circular. And the crustal edges of the hole selected for magnification (called "Jeanne") shows uniform thickness all the way around, inferring a dome-roofed cavern curving symetrically away in all directions beneath the crust. And, since the point of view must have been from directly overhead, the jagged edges appear to be slanted slightly inward from the outer to the inner edges. Given the roughly 100 meter diameter and assuming a slope of 60-70 degrees, say, a good approximation of the thickness of the crust at the edges might be calculated to determine the tensile strength of the overburden in the region of the hole. Notice also the distinctl lighter colored material extending from entire breadth of the hole, in the northerly direction. Now, what could possibly be the cause of that?

Offline

#12 2007-07-05 21:17:29

Cosmophobic space buff!
InActive
From: Michigan
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 5

Re: The Caverns of Mars

It looks like somebody poked a pencil through the photograph! :evil:

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB