Home Plate Hints At Explosive Past

MARSDAILY

This particular patch of Mars hints at an explosive past. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell University

by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (SPX) Apr 13, 2006
New images from NASA's Spirit rover show coarse-grained layers from around the edge of a low plateau called Home Plate inside Gusev Crater on Mars. One possible origin for the material it fell to the ground after being thrown aloft by an explosion such as a volcanic eruption or meteorite impact.

Spirit's panoramic camera actually acquired the exposures on Feb. 10, the 749th Martian day, or sol, of its planned 90 day mission. This view is an approximately true-color rendering mathematically generated from separate images taken through all of the left Pancam's 432-nanometer to 753-nanometer filters.

The image includes a feature that could be what geologists call a bomb sag, which suggests an explosive event, such as a volcanic eruption. When layered deposits are struck by a falling rock while the layers are still soft, this type of pattern can be created.

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MARSDAILY

Mars Express Captures Happy-Face Crater

Paris, France (SPX) Apr 11, 2006
Mars Express captured this image showing the Galle Crater, a feature 230 kilometers (143 miles) wide located on the eastern rim of the red planet's Argyre Planitia impact basin.

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