Here’s a Fresh, Never Before Seen Impact Crater on Mars

Impact crater on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

by FRASER CAIN
The surface of Mars is a well worn place in the Solar System, heavily pounded by countless meteor impacts. And some of these craters are hundreds of millions of years old. So it’s unusual for there to be a completely fresh impact on the surface of Mars: but that’s just what NASA scientists discovered looking through a recent batch of images returned from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

You’re looking at an image taken by the Mars Context Camera, an instrument on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In an older photograph taken of the region in February 2012, there was just a bunch of old craters. And then, in the newer image, taken June 2014, this fresh scar on the surface of Mars is clearly visible.

No crater… then crater. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

The crater itself is circular, but the blast of ejecta indicates that the object came in from the West, and struck the surface of Mars, blasting out a curtain of pulverized rock that covered the nearby surface. The impactor would have vaporized into a fireball of superheated rock, like a nuclear bomb exploding on the surface of Mars, while the eject blanket was shot out to the side.  Read More >>

Source:  http://www.universetoday.com/118073/heres-a-fresh-never-before-seen-impact-crater-on-mars/



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mysterious floating light caught on camera in Cumbest Bluff

Baltic Sea Under Water UFO

SHOCK CLAIM: John Kerry ‘visited Antarctica to examine secret Nazi UFO base’