European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter has snapped a new image of the Martian surface. The image shows an overhead view of the deep trenches that are created by activity from nearby volcanoes. Mars hosts Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system, and volcanic activity has impacted a lot on Mars’ evolution.
It’s unclear whether there’s still volcanic activity happening there, but it was definitely happening at some point of time in the past. The evidence lies in the lava flows and lava planes that are found on the surface of the Red Planet, as well as many volcanoes such as Olympus Mons.
TGO capturing deep trenches of Mars
Another feature in the Martian landscape left by volcanic activity is deep trenches. The CaSSIS camera fitted on ESA’s and Roscosmos’ Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) captured the Cerberus Fossae trenches recently.
It’s a false-color image, which means the colors have been processed to show the depth of the trenches in dark blue. The trenches are more than a mile wide and run for close to 600 miles across the region. The image shows several hundred-meter-deep views of the trenches.
“The floor here is a few hundred meters deep and is filled with coarse-grained sand, likely basaltic in composition, which appears blue in the CaSSIS false-color composite image,” ESA writes. “The flat volcanic plains nearby are punctured by small impact craters, which expose possibly the same basaltic materials that we see within Cerberus Fossae.”
Major plans to colonize Mars
Humanity has major plans for Mars travel with the aim to colonize the planet. In a new study, scientists have suggested some measures to deal with safety issues, which also include strategically picking the time to travel to the Red Planet.
“This study shows that while space radiation imposes strict limitations and presents technological difficulties for the human mission to Mars, such a mission is still viable,” reads the paper published in the journal Space Weather. The paper has simulations that suggest the best time to travel to Mars. The study might come in handy for space agencies to plan their Mars missions.
