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Impact craters in the Lunae Planum region.
(ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) |
The environment on dusty, dry, barren Mars is stark and
bare. There are no oceans or lakes, no forests, and no cities. As a result, the
Earth appears almost completely alien, with its scarred surface exposed beneath
an orange sky.
That means we get photographs from Mars orbiters that are
unlike anything we've ever seen on Earth, like the image above of a volcanic
plain scarred by impact craters taken by the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas
Orbiter in March.
The Lunae Planum is a transitional region between the
northern lowlands and the Tharsis Montes volcanic complex, which is assumed to
be responsible for much of the area's lava deposits.
Images like these can help us gain a better understanding of
the processes on Mars. The plain's craters, including the three medium-sized
ones in the foreground, formed after the volcanic surfacing, excavating
material from beneath the surface.
This means we'll be able to see into Martian history.
Layering around the rims of the larger craters, for example, could have been
caused by consecutive lava flows from a time when the planet was more
volcanically active.
We don't know if Mars' volcanoes are still active today.
Scientists thought it was as dead as a doornail for a long time, but new
evidence shows otherwise.
Planetary geologists can use disruptions in volcanic
surfaces to figure out when lava flows happened, which can help them piece
together the planet's volcanic history.
Because we can't visit many sites on Mars - there are only
two operational rovers and the stationary Mars InSight lander – orbital photos
are one of the most useful tools we have.
The core objective of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is
atmospheric research (at which it excels), but photographs like these are
frosting on the cake.
You can download the image in high resolution from the ESAwebsite.
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