The images of Mars were captured by the HiRise camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter .
NASA ‘s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured mysterious crater deposits in the area called Arabia Terra on Mars .
These images, captured by the HiRise camera, reveal “curious deposits with strange shapes and distributions.”
unique views
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the images from a height of 296 kilometers from the Martian surface.
“The deposits have horizontal laminations that could be layers or terraces,” wrote Paul Geissler, a researcher at the University of Arizona. The HiRise camera is controlled by researchers from this university.
The deposits were found to have been found in craters measuring more than 600 meters across. The smallest craters, measuring 450 meters across or less, do not have such deformations.
The deposits only appear to appear on the southern sides of craters that measure 600 meters in diameter. Small bright ridges were also found radiating from them.
theory about it
One possible explanation is that the deposits in the crater are associated with sublimation (a process in which a solid substance turns directly into a gas) of ice-rich material on Mars .
“The terraces may represent different epochs of sublimation,” Geissler explained. “Perhaps the largest craters penetrated a water table 45 to 60 meters below the surface and flooded after formation.”
NASA ‘s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched in 2005 with the goal of mapping the Martian surface and looking for signs of water.