'Hole' new mystery on Mars: NASA finds strange pits inside Gale Crater and no explanation
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "'Hole' new mystery on Mars: NASA finds strange pits inside Gale Crater and no explanation")
The mysterious holes near Mount Sharp were discovered by Curiosity rover. Photograph: (NASA-JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
Inside the Gale Crater on Mars are strange holes that NASA says were not made by meteorites or other such impacts. Ideally, the hard objects that made these impressions should be present, but NASA found nothing. The pits are now another mystery on Mars.
NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered holes on the Martian surface which are different from the ones made by meteors. Mars has several such holes, but the ones recently discovered are strange and different from anything else seen in other parts of the planet. The discovery was made in the Valle Grande, a broad valley cutting through Mount Sharp that sits inside the Gale Crater. NASA said that while meteorites regularly punch holes into the red, dusty planet, they are not sure how the pits in Valle Grande formed.
NASA says the holes are broad and shallow, and different from anything seen in the past. Dr Michelle Minitti, MAHLI Deputy Principal Investigator, detailed the discovery in a blog post. She said this particular section of rocks has been affected by certain processes which they will try to understand in the near future.
How similar holes form on Earth
On our planet, small holes form in the bedrock when a tough stone or anything else that is harder gets stuck in a bed of softer rock. They eventually get washed away or removed after breaking apart, leaving behind impressions. But NASA scientists did not find the objects that would have left these holes on Mars. "The pits of this week were much broader and shallower than past features and were not accompanied by obvious objects that were once in the pits," Minitti wrote.
The holes were photographed closely by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), while the Mastcam camera took several overlapping images of the surrounding region. The space agency will use these images to create a three-dimensional map of the pits and measure their shapes and depth to understand how they were formed.
What the holes can tell about the history of Mars
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The rover also showed that the nearby layers of rock bed changed rapidly in appearance. Certain tough grey areas resist erosion in a different manner compared to their surroundings. Scientists think this could be evidence that the conditions under which these layers of rock were laid down millions or billions of years ago underwent rapid transformation.
This region on Mars is of particular interest to NASA because the Gale Crater here is believed to have been formed by an asteroid impact around three billion years ago. Mount Sharp is located right at the centre of the crater and is 5.5 km high. The sedimentary layers in the mountain are believed to hide the record of the environmental conditions when each layer was deposited.
