segunda-feira, 28 de maio de 2007

Windows onto the abyss: cave skylights on Mars


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.

This black spot is one of seven possible entrances to subterranean caves identified on Mars by Glen Cushing, Tim Titus, J. Judson Wynne and Phil Christensen in a paper they presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March (PDF format, 322k). Here's the figure from their paper that shows the seven caves, which they refer to by the names Dena, Chloe, Wendy, Annie, Abbey, Nikki, and Jeanne
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000984/

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