Students discover cave on Red Planet

Hey ATS, I came across this article about a cave that was recently discovered on Mars. The opening to this cave is huge and it is also thought to be very deep. This is not the first discovery of it's kind and I added another picture below this article pic and info of the seven sisters. They are a group of caves that are said to range from 300 feet across to more than 800 feet. They are also said to be around 400 feet deep.

The schoolgoers were using the THEMIS to find lava tubes on the Red Plant when they came across a small black feature straddling one of the tubes.

The feature, identified as a cave or "skylight", near the Pavonis Mons volcano was a hole, punched in the top of a hollow tube.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8aa9acf6df18.jpg[/atsimg]

"This pit is certainly new to us," Discovery News quoted Glen Cushing, a US Geological Survey scientist, as saying.

He added: "And it is only the second one known to be associated with Pavonis Mons."

Cushing believes the new skylight is around 190×160 meters wide and at least 115 meters deep.

www.discoveryon.info...

The Seven Sisters

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/330adda22a2f.jpg[/atsimg]

A Mars-orbiting satellite recently spotted seven dark spots near the planet's equator that scientists think could be entrances to underground caves.

The football-field sized holes were observed by Mars Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) and have been dubbed the seven sisters --Dena, Chloe, Wendy, Annie, Abbey, Nikki and Jeanne--after loved ones of the researchers who found them.

The potential caves were spotted near a massive Martian volcano, Arisa Mons. Their openings range from about 330 to 820 feet (100 to 250 meters) wide, and one of them, Dena, is thought to extend nearly 430 feet (130 meters) beneath the planet's surface.

www.space.com...

I thought this was pretty cool and it is thought that these caves could be used in future expeditions to mars as habitats for astronauts among other things.

reply to post by TV_Nation


These structures could help shave $$$$$$$$$ off the cost of a manned mission to Mars .

How appropriated that space -age mankind , will seek shelter yet again in caves . Just as our ancestors did during the formative years of our species.

TEDTalk :: Penelope Boston: Life on Mars? Let's look in the caves

Scientist Penelope Boston thinks there's a good chance -- a 25 to 50 percent chance, in fact -- that life might exist on Mars, deep inside the planet's caves.

She details how we should look and why.

Great topic !




[edit on 20-6-2010 by UmbraSumus]

[edit on 20-6-2010 by UmbraSumus]

reply to post by TV_Nation


Those caves are really cool, and yes caves could form the basis for a future habitat on Mars. I like the idea because it reduces many surface hazards, like the sandstorms which can be quite fierce, and radiation. I also suspect Mars' thin atmosphere still lets some micrometeoroids hit the surface which would burn up in Earth's atmosphere but where Mars' atmosphere is a little too thin to burn up the larger objects.

However these caves are huge! Maybe suitable for a large future colony, but a smaller cave or hollow lava tube would be better to start with. We may also find that the caves or lava tubes need to be reinforced to make sure they don't collapse. This could be tricky.

reply to post by UmbraSumus


Hey thanks for posting that video!

It was pretty interesting and provided some cool pictures and insight on the diversity of life that caves can hold.

The woman's voice giving the presentation was kinda hard to listen to for 20 minutes but I enjoyed it overall.

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