Space August 31, 2007
Dark caverns discovered on Mars
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has snapped shots of seven different caverns or pits which are so deep they aren’t reflecting sunlight. When I first saw one of the photos at Universe Today I thought it looked like a PhotoShop trick. Then I noticed in the article that the author said, “When I first saw this image, I thought it was some kind of joke, or Photoshop trick. But nope, this is real.” Well, at least I’m not the only one.
on 31 Aug 2007 at 4:07 pm 1.Carl P. E. dos Santos said …
NASA has another photo that shows that this is actually a pit with nearly vertical sides. It looks like it may be a “pit crater” similar to the ones in Hawaii.
NASA article and new photo:
http://uanews.org/node/15715
on 24 Sep 2007 at 1:01 pm 2.Carl P. E. dos Santos said …
NASA has infrared images of the holes taken at various times during the day/night cycle. They’ve shown that the holes are cooler than the surrounding land during the day and warmer at night. This suggests that they are deep.
The current thought is that maybe holes like this could be used to shelter human settlements or perhaps they have sheltered Martian life. We’ll see. The seven that have been found so far are at too high an altitude to be useful.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/21sep_caves.htm?list1009006