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Friday, 25 May 2012

Mars orbiter captures mysterious hollows in the ice on surface of planet - are they wrong shape for simple meteorite impacts?

The surface of Mars is dotted with craters - but when the HiRise camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured 'holes' in the ice of the planet, scientists were puzzled. The 'holes' aren't the circular shape of a 'normal' meteorite impact - they have two levels, a small inner crater, surrounded by a shallow depression extending outward from the inner crater. The craters seem to have exposed a layer of shallow ice that was mapped by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. This image is located at 50 degrees north latitude, where shallow ice has been mapped by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. The scientists now think that the layer of ice might have 'boiled off' into space after being exposed by meteoriste impacts...read more>>>...