Mars' gravity map finds mysterious blobs, 'Martian dog' beneath its seabed

A new "gravity map" of Mars has revealed the mysteries hidden beneath the surface of Mars that were unknown to humankind till now,

On the map, dozens of mysteriously dense blobs were spotted - one of them being in the shape of a dog - below the ancient seabed around the north pole of the Red Planet.

The first-of-its-kind map further confirmed the existence of the tallest mountain on Mars.

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The density map of Mars was created by the researchers by combining data about the crust of the planet from NASA's InSight lander along with records of fluctuations in the satellites' orbits.

Here's what the gravity map reveals about Mars

The new map brought into focus 20 underground blobs present in the Borealis Basin which is in the northern hemisphere of Mars and was an ancient seabed more than 3 billion years ago.

In a statement, the researchers said that the blobs were of all shapes and sizes and one of them "resembles the shape of a dog". The density of these blobs ranged between 300 and 400 kilograms per cubic meter.

However, the scientists were not able to confirm how these blobs were formed and why were they so dense.

"These dense structures could be volcanic in origin or could be compacted material due to ancient [meteor] impacts," said study lead authorBart Root, who is also a planetary scientist at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, in the statement.

And "there seems to be no trace of them at the surface," he said.

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The findings were presented by the research team at the Europlanet Science Congress in Berlin between September 8-13.

The map revealed that the northern polar formations are nearly 300-400 kg/m³ denser in comparison to their surroundings.

“Through gravity data, we have a tantalizing glimpse into the older history of the northern hemisphere of Mars,” said Dr. Root.

The enormous volcanic region of Tharsis Rise, which included Olympus Mons, was also revealed in the study.

“The NASA InSight mission has given us vital new information about the hard outer layer of Mars. This means we need to rethink how we understand the support for the Olympus Mons volcano and its surroundings,” Dr. Root added.

(With inputs from agencies)