Mars lava unlocks the red planet's secrets

The first lava ever seen in an extraterrestrial environment was spotted recently by scientists. It indicates that Mars was shaped by volcanic activity.

|
AP Photo/NASA
This image shows lava flows in the shape of coils located near the equatorial region of Mars. This is the first time such geologic features have been discovered outside of Earth.

Giant coils of lava on Mars suggest a mysterious network of valleys on the planet was born from volcanoes, researchers say.

The origin of the Athabasca Valles region near the equator of Mars has been debated for more than a decade. Some researchers have proposed that lava once shaped the valleys, while others have thought ice was responsible.

The way the ground there is patterned with multisided polygons suggests that either fire or ice could be the culprit — such patterns of cracks might have formed due to seasonal fluctuations in temperature if the surface there was rich in ice, but also might have arose as lava cooled and fractured.

Now high-resolution images beamed back by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the Red Planet have revealed 269 spirals of lava that researchers say cannot be explained by ice-related activity. [Photos From NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter]

"This is the first time lava coils have been identified on an extraterrestrial setting," study lead author Andrew Ryan at Arizona State University told SPACE.com. "The most surprising thing about these features when I first saw them was how well-preserved they are."

Ryan spotted all these coils, ranging from 16 to 98 feet wide (5 to 30 meters), by eye.

"You can't see them unless you zoom in really close, and even then they're really subtle — it's pretty dusty there, so the images are just a pale gray color, and they don't really jump out until you boost the contrast, so it's not surprising at all to me that they've been overlooked before," Ryan said.

These spirals resemble lava coils on Earth, such as those forming on the surface of Hawaiian lava flows. "These can only be explained by lava processes," Ryan said. "There are no known processes to twist ice around on that scale."

Future modeling of how these spirals formed can help figure out the composition of these lavas, "which can tell you about the composition of the Martian crust and mantle, things we don't know much about," Ryan said.

Mars is the home of the largest known volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, which towers over Mars' western hemisphere. At 16 miles (25 km) high, it is about three times as tall as Mount Everest, Earth's highest mountain.

The $720 million Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched in September 2005.

The scientists detailed their findings in the April 27 issue of the journal Science.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Mars lava unlocks the red planet's secrets
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0426/Mars-lava-unlocks-the-red-planet-s-secrets
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe