A mysterious hole on Mars has sparked speculation that it could be a gateway to ancient extraterrestrial life.
The crater-shaped opening, about 150 feet wide, lies on the edge of an ancient volcano, and scientists have suggested it could be protecting life forms from the radiation and harsh conditions of the Red Planet.
While researchers aren’t sure how deep the pit is, they said it’s likely an underground lava tube that formed during a volcanic explosion, and the deep tunnel could serve as a shelter for astronauts preparing to put boots on. the Martian world.
A mysterious hole on Mars has sparked speculation it could be a gateway to ancient extraterrestrial life.
Scientists aren’t sure how deep the holes on Mars (pictured) are. They believe they were formed after a volcanic explosion caused lava tubes to form.
The University of Arizona republished a photo of the Mars hole for its ‘Picture of the Day’ this month, sparking additional conversations about how it will influence future science missions.
Although scientists captured the image with the HiRISE camera in 2022, they are still working to figure out how or why these holes exist.
Researchers have theorized that the holes are “skylights” where the ground above the lava tubes collapsed, according to Brandon Johnson, a geophysicist at Purdue University who studies impact craters throughout the solar system.
Lava tubes are underground passageways, similar to a long cave, that were formed during a volcanic explosion.
As the lava flows downhill, its surface cools and hardens, forming a dark crust that acts as an insulator for the lava flowing beneath its surface.
This allows the lava to stay hotter and flow more, leaving an empty tunnel in its wake.
“There are more than one of these (wells) on Mars that we’ve seen,” Johnson said. Business Insider.
“But they are really interesting because they are places where astronauts could go and be safe from radiation.”
Mars’s thin atmosphere and lack of a global magnetic field like Earth’s, which extends into space and interacts with the solar wind to block radiation emitted by the sun, creates dangerous radiation levels.
Lava tubes are underground passageways, similar to a long cave, that were formed during a volcanic explosion. As the lava flows downhill, its surface cools and hardens, forming a dark crust that acts as an insulator for the lava flowing beneath its surface. The holes (pictured) probably formed after the surface above the lava tubes subsided.
Mars hosts high levels of radiation that poses dangerous risks to astronauts. Scientists hope the holes discovered on the red planet can provide shelter from the elements.
Radiation poses a major challenge for astronauts who would be exposed to high-energy cosmic rays that could cause long-term health problems such as cataracts, heart disease, cancer, genetic damage and death.
However, these holes could lead to lava tubes large enough for astronauts to survive the elements, if humans reach Mars.
“On Earth, these lava tubes can be large enough to walk in, but they can also be small or the voids can be discrete or discontinuous,” Ross Beyer, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, told Business Insider.
“So these pits we see could open up to larger caves, or they could just be isolated pits,” Beyer continued, adding, “There’s no way to know what’s in them until we explore them in more detail.”
It is not known when a mission could bring humans to the planet, but scientists have suggested other options to discover more about the wells.
“There are proposed missions to essentially have a robot go online and drop into one of these skylights and be able to explore what’s inside them,” Johnson said, although he noted that there are no such missions in the works yet.
Wells do not guarantee that there is life on Mars, but Johnson added: “This is a good place to look.”