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An image from the European Space Agency's Mars Express Orbiter, which has been patrolling the Red Planet for nearly six years, shows lava flows from a Martian volcano that may have been active in the last 100 million years. Mars's volcanoes are not thought to be active today, but some of them, such as Arsia Mons, appear to have been in recent geologic history.
This lava flow is on Daedalia Planum, a plain southeast of Arsia Mons, and reflects varying stages of volcanic deposition. The elevated, textured lava at the center of the image is more recent, whereas the raised flows on the lower left of the plain have been coated by sediments over time, smoothing their surface.
Two craters in the image show the transformative effects of lava flows on the Martian landscape: the large crater at bottom is relatively unscathed, while a similar-size crater on the right has been all but erased by volcanic floods.
For those with 3-D glasses handy, the map of the region is also available as a high-resolution three-dimensional stereo image.
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4 Comments
Add CommentWho cares?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeed to get this planet corrected before we piss up others!
Space folk need to wake up and care about their gene pool!
Really intereting. Appreciate your bringing us these marvelously informative images, and hope it will accellerate the rate at which humans becomes at long last a space-faring civiilazation capable of using the resources of space (inexhuasable solar energy and unimaginable wealth of the asteroids, as well as scientific information about the universe in which we live) to improve our lives and take the presssure off of our farovite place, Earth itself. We need to dump the old dirty ballistic missile approach in favor of new non-polluting forms of launching. There are several under considerting but so far the US is so obsessed over war, warming , and whatever that we agonize over the tiniest of details and "what ifs" instead of standing upright and walking purposefully towards the obvious solutions to many of our species problems. Maybe China or India or some as-yet-to-be created transnational conglomeration will express the kind of intellectual drive that was the hallmark of our culture before it became subject to anxiety over the gordian knot of uncertainty which is the matrix of reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo Frosty46:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery articulate and insightful. We need more great minds like yours to set our priorities straight and point the way into the future. I nominate you for a Nobel prize for exposing how our exploration of the solar system compromises the health of our "gene pool" here on Earth. We "space folk" can't thank you enough for your prescient comments.
To Frost46:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery articulate and insightful. We need more great minds like yours to set our priorities straight and point our way into the future. I nominate you for a Nobel prize for exposing how our exploration of the solar system compromises our "gene pool" here on Earth. We "space folk" certainly appreciate your prescient comments.