Mysteries on Mars

So we have had a face on Mars, (for me a classic case of apophenia ) various pyramids on Mars and other junk. Fortunately this has been supplanted by some real and interesting revelations about the red planet from the excellent technology we have out there. But now we have a new mystery object – which, so far, the pseudoscientists haven’t had chance to speculate on.

This will probably be called the “Hole on Mars” because that is exactly what it is – a hole. Or as Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society calls it : “a window onto an underground world”. The May 23^rd image releases from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE team included this one, of a fairly uninteresting looking lava plain to the northeast of Arsia Mons. Uninteresting, that is, except for a black spot in the center.

This black spot is one of seven possible entrances to underground caves identified on Mars. At its highest resolution of 25 cms per pixel, the HiRISE camera sees the detailed shape of the slightly scalloped edge of the hole, but no amount of image enhancement can bring out any further details inside the hole. That means that the walls of the cave are overhanging — the cave is larger below the ground than the entrance we can see at the surface — and that it is very deep.

The cave is so big and so deep that almost none of the light that enters the cave comes out. The hole that we see is really just a skylight on a big underground room. As for why that room is there and what we are likely to find in it – that’s anyones guess for now. But I’m sure there will be plenty of guesses. One cant help but remember H.G. Wells’ “First Men In the Moon” where the apparent lifeless surface of the Moon reveals an underground civilisation accessed through a hole just like this.

However, don’t let me put ideas in to your head – there will be plenty in the weeks to come who will do just that. What interests me is just why would there be underground caverns and cave systems on Mars anyway? On our planet we associate such formations with limestone and underground streams – what process is at work on Mars? Incidentally, I was tempted to use the word “subterranean” in the preceding text until I remembered that means “under the Earth” . So what would the correct word be in this case? Submartian?

You can find more pictures and details of other martian holes here. And how about this for an impressive looking Earth-based hole?

Good Games

This has been a favorite for a while now – Tower Blaster. The principle is simple – arrange numbered blocks in order to form a tower before your computer opponent. The game isn’t timed, the skill is in placing the blocks in the right place as they are presented to you. A natural understanding of probability helps. It also helps to turn the annoying sound track off.

Pet Peeves

Today’s pet peeve came up at a recent “fête” – various stalls and activities organised in a field somewhere to raise funds for some worthy project. Inevitably there was a stall offering food and drink and inevitably an horrendous queue (US: “line”) before it. So I work out what my brood want to eat and drink, let them carry on with the fun while I join the queue and settle in for a long wait.

Eventually I get to be only one person away from the counter. They ask the guy in front of me what he wants and then he shouts across to the eight or nine people he is ordering for and asks them “what do you want?”. Since some of them are children and the rest cant seem to make up their mind I wait another 15 minutes while they hum and haw their way through the choices on offer before finally placing an order. Now I don’t object to the fact that he was representing a group of people rather than just himself – that’s what I was doing and it seems the only sensible way to go about this. What I don’t understand is why did he wait until he had gotten to the counter before finding out what people wanted? Like me he had been standing there for 30 minutes – ample time to put together his order and even to allow for last minute changes of mind. Why add to the waiting time for all the people behind him? So that my peeve: people who make others wait because they don’t know what they want.

Time to go now. My kids have discovered that the broken laths from the bed make excellent swords…