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Large Caves Found on the Surface of Mars

Posted by Zonk on from the oh-crap-i'd-better-move-my-stuff dept.

David DelMonte writes "Space.com is reporting on the discovery of seven dark spots near the Equator on Mars. The thinking is that these are cave openings. The openings are the size of football fields, and one of them is thought to extend approximately 400 feet below the surface.'The researchers hope the discovery will lead to more focused spelunking on Mars. "Caves on Mars could become habitats for future explorers or could be the only structures that preserve evidence of past or present microbial life ," said Glenn Cushing of Northern Arizona University, who first spotted the black areas in the photographs.'"

16 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. We're not as unique as everyone thinks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The fact planets orbit other stars, the fact there's water elsewhere in the solar system, the fact there are caves on other planets...Why do we as humans believe we are unique in a universe as big as what we live in? This should be common sense by now.

    1. Re:We're not as unique as everyone thinks... by beckerist · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The point of the story is more about the fact this discovery might lead to much easier access to sub-martian exploration. Caves are a natural occurance everywhere, that's not debated. The fact we found some on Mars that have the potential to open up new discoveries for us mere "humans" is why this story is relevant.

    2. Re:We're not as unique as everyone thinks... by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't confuse a propaganda campaign by NASA with what scientists actually think. Nobody working in the field is the least surprised by caves on Mars. But NASA need to make press releases and hype them up a bit. And anyway, caves on Mars are cool.

      --
      Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
    3. Re:We're not as unique as everyone thinks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      There was an interesting article in SciAm awhile back about parallel universes - it was postulated that if the universe was truly infinite then an exact replica of you existed somewhere in the neighborhood of 10^100 light years away, because that's how much volume of space would be required to store all possible combinations/arrangements of matter that exist in the known/visible universe - at about 10^100 light years you'd have a duplicate arrangement.

      Of course, this also implies that if you consider the set of all possible arrangements of matter that we live in the one where humanity exists alone in the visible universe. So, since:

      a) mathematically it's possible humanity is alone in this universe, and
      b) we have seen no evidence of extraterrestrial life,

      does it surprise ANYONE why most people think we're alone in the universe?

      And I didn't even feel the need to pick on religion to explain it.

    4. Re:We're not as unique as everyone thinks... by beckerist · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think the scale of it all is lost on us. We're very very limited in our perceptions of reality, as we are confined to our 5 senses, and making appropriations and rough abstractions so that we can understand this reality as it relates to us. Just because we haven't seen evidence of extra-terrestrials, is not proof that they aren't there. Also, just because something is mathematically possible is a very far stretch from being a mathematical improbability (which this most certainly isn't.) You make valid points as to the psychology behind why people believe we are alone. I'm just saying that logically, if you look past the hubris and near-sightedness of our race we are most likely not alone.

    5. Re:We're not as unique as everyone thinks... by escher · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No problem. You shoot a nuke down a bug hole, you got a lot of dead bugs.

  2. Wait, what? by susano_otter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why does the article keep switching back and forth between "we think they might be caves" and "we're certain they really are caves"? Let me know when they've made up their minds about whether or not they've made up their minds, and I'll start caring about these (possible) caves.

    --

    Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    1. Re:Wait, what? by jawtheshark · · Score: 2, Insightful

      2 weeks? To Mars? I think you've got your scales a bit wrong.

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
  3. Surprise? by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We know Venus has mountains and valleys. We know Mars has mountains and valleys.

    Should be at all surprised to find caves on Mars?

    I thought we already believed that all solid planets had plate activity like Earth, that formed the mountains and valleys. Aren't caves a natural extension of that thought process?

    I thought this was a given.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    1. Re:Surprise? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't see the word "surprising" anywhere in the article. You do realize there's a difference between predicting something and confirming it, right?

    2. Re:Surprise? by Normal+Dan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We have hypothesised about caves on other planets but have not seen any until this point. The fantastic thing is not that there are caves on Mars, but the fact that we may have found them. This new find could drastically change our future missions to Mars.

      --
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  4. No matter how much changes... by goofyheadedpunk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > Caves on Mars could become habitats for future explorers...

    Does anyone else find it slightly amusing that as humans move out into space we may yet again end up living in caves?

    --

    What if the entire Universe were a chrooted environment with everything symlinked from the host?
  5. 2001 A space odyssey by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Part of the symbolism of the space baby at the end of the movie is that people are masters of the Earth, but we're infants in space. We're vulnerable, and have to learn and practice even simple things like moving from one end of the spacecraft to the other in a spacesuit. We wear diapers up there.

    If we're going to be on Mars, it is therefore fitting that we should be cavemen. That's where we started, and that's where we will start again.

    --
    Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    1. Re:2001 A space odyssey by owlnation · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If we're going to be on Mars, it is therefore fitting that we should be cavemen. That's where we started, and that's where we will start again.
      Agreed. But with one teensy caveat. We shouldn't make the same mistakes again.
  6. Re:It Still Amazes Me... by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    > I suspect that if we do, we'll be very surprised... If you suspect that you're going to be surprised, then it can't be a surprise after all. This is a consequence of a theorem from probability theory: your expectation of what you think your future expectation of something should be must match your current expectation of it.

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  7. If we missed this... by rifter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Humans have been scrutinizing Mars to the best of their ability given available technology for centuries. We have sent probes to map the surface multiple times and robots to probe in various ways. And all this time we missed seven caves whose openings were larger than football fields (and in some cases larger than two football fields) which just happen to be near one of the most prominent features we know about. Whether these features are caves or not, the facts of their size and location should be a wakeup call to us as far as the limitations of our efforts thus far. Who knows what else we are missing; one must also wonder at the difficulty of finding microbes on a planet where we were unable to detect features of this size.

    I hope one day we can place colonies on Mars, as inhospitable as it is. Once we have done that we will be in a better position to explore the planet as we have ours. Every time we think we have found everything worth finding on Mars and further exploration will not yield any results that change our impression that it is a dull, lifeless planet whose only saving grace is that it is nearby we find something that surprises us. We can only hope this trend continues.