The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express orbiter examined Mars’ Nili Fossae trenches, located along the eastern edge of a massive impact crater called Isidis Planitia. These trenches have hundreds of meters deep and several hundred kilometers longand are accompanied by formations called graben, which form when the ground between two parallel trenches fractures and falls.
The Nili Fossae trenches are believed to have formed after a colossal meteorite impact about 4 billion years ago. After the impact, which created the 1,900 kilometer wide Isidis Planitia crater, areas of the Martian surface would have cracked and crumbled, forming the trenches seen by the orbiter. According to the ESA, similar shapes, called Amentthes Fossae, can also be found on the other side of the crater, published the specialized site Space.com.
“Scientists focused on Nili Fossae in recent years because of the impressive amount and diversity of minerals found in this areaincluding silicates, carbonates and clays, many of which were discovered by the OMEGA instrument on Mars Express,” ESA officials said in the description of the orbiter’s recent video on YouTube. “These minerals form in the presence of water, which indicating that this region was very humid in ancient Martian history.”
Created with data from the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), New video shows the fractured and uneven appearance of the Nili Fossae trenchesalong with a bird’s-eye view of nearby Jezero Crater, where NASA’s Perseverance rover landed in 2021 to look for signs of life that may have once inhabited the ancient lake that filled the crater.
“Much of the soil here formed more than 3.5 billion years agowhen surface water was abundant on Mars,” ESA officials wrote in the video description. “Scientists believe that water here not only flowed on the surface but also below it, forming underground hydrothermal currents that were heated by ancient volcanoes. “.
The Mars Express orbiter, which arrived at the Red Planet in 2003, previously studied Nili Fossae in 2014. Researchers used images captured by the orbiter, along with digital models of Mars’ terrain to create the 3D representation of the landscape used for the flyby video. .
These data not only help us understand the past of Mars, but also They help inform scientists where to land exploratory spacecraft in the future.
