Mysterious Martian 'Ridges'

by ScienceDave | September 12, 2007 at 06:57 am
712 views | 10 Recommendations | 1 comment

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Mysterious Martian 'Ridges'

Mysterious Martian 'Ridges'

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Strange topographical ridges have been discovered on the distant red planet.  Using its High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), the Mars Express, named so because it was built the fastest of an Planet-bound mission, captured images of what appear to be irregular ridges in an estuary flat.

What might have caused this?
The scene in the images covers an area of approximately 140 by 80 km at the mouth of Tiu Valles...

...Its winding, meandering ridges, bound by depressions, are eye-catching. The exact processes that formed these odd structures are unknown. One possibility is that during floods, water or water-rich surface layers came in contact with lava from the surrounding areas, which then might have led to the formation of these mysterious ridges.

Of course, any evidence for the existence of ancient water and active volcanism is exciting. Water is thought to be a key player in plate techntonics, while providing the liquid medium for living things to evolve.


Who knows what sort of fossils might be found deep below the red surface....maybe none!

recommend This comment thread is now closed
Jordan Yerman
Jordan Yerman
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:40 on September 12th, 2007

ScienceDave, this is really cool. I never get tired of a good Mars story...

This story was created over 3 months ago, the comment thread is now closed.

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