Stunning Image Of Mars Reveals An Eerie Crater
An unnamed crater in the Aonia Terra on Mars, in true color. (ESA/DLR/FU Berlin)
A stunning image captured by a spaceship orbiting Mars could induce Lovecraftian nightmares. A massive, city-sized, nameless crater gapes on the surface of Mars well below the camera of ESA's Mars Express, smears of dark material making it appear like an enormous eye gazing up to the stars.
However, the image's objective isn't to give you the creeps; satellite imagery can help us better comprehend Mars' geology and history.
The crater, which is 30 kilometres large, is located in the Aonia Terra region of Mars' southern hemisphere. It's deeply cratered, and the topic of the new Mars Express photographs is far from the largest or most striking; it's not far from the 200-kilometer-wide Lowell Crater.
Massive impacts are assumed to have carved out Lowell and many of the craters in the area about 4 billion years ago, during a destructive phase of the early Solar System known as the Late Heavy Bombardment.
Meanwhile, Earth was blasted and in the process, it was considered to have seeded the young planet with water and organic compounds, but atmospheric and seismic processes have wiped much of the evidence from the surface of our world.
The data survives on Mars, which is barren and geologically much quieter, providing us with a tool for comprehending more chaotic periods in the Solar System's history.
Aonia Terra and other regions on Mars can also give information about the planet's makeup. A forceful impact exposes material that would otherwise be hidden beneath the surface, resulting in novel geologies and compositions on the surface. The surface composition of the region depicted in the new photograph appears to be diverse and variable.
The nameless eye crater is located in topography hollowed out by channels, which were most likely formed billions of years ago by rivers of liquid water flowing across the surface. Traces of darker material may be observed in these channels, and several of them seem to be uplifted – possibly as a result of erosion-resistant material settling in dried-up riverbeds and surviving even when the river's walls are swept away by strong winds.