Slashdot Mirror
Massive Cave Found on Mars
mrcgran writes "Space.com is reporting a very deep hole found on Mars: 'The geological oddity measures some 330 feet (100 meters) across and is located on an otherwise bright dusty lava plain to the northeast of Arsia Mons, one of the four giant Tharsis volcanoes on the red planet. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) used its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument to draw a bead on the apparent deep hole — a feature that may cause more scientists to ponder about potential subsurface biology on Mars. Because the spot lacks a raised rim or tossed out material called ejecta, researchers have ruled out the pit being an impact crater. No walls or other details can be seen inside the hole, and so any possible walls might be perfectly vertical and extremely dark or — more likely — overhanging.' The original image and its cutout at full resolution can be found in the HiRISE site."
That's no cave! It a giant pool of Purity.
:-)
Seriously though, the absolute absence of albedo in the visible spectrum is stunning. I wonder if there are multi-spectral images of this site? I expect this location will be of intense study in the future as there is little more than a complete absence of something to stir the human imagination.
However, I have to disagree with the analysis in that you can see shallow walls at the very edges of the crater if you stretch the image some and examine the profiles. It also appears to match the brightness of the elevation changes from one rim of the hole to the other which should give some idea for how tall the lip of the hole is to where the "blackness" starts presuming they know the angle of the sun and lat and long. Depending upon how far up the sun can get in the sky at a different season, there may be a possibility of seeing further into the hole, presuming of course it is not a giant pool of Purity....
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
"A very dark spot on [Uranus] could be an entrance to a deep hole or cavern, according to scientists studying imagery taken by NASA's a...ss Orbiter. The geological oddity measures some 330 feet (100 meters) across... The hole might be the sort of place that could support life or serve as a habitat... Must be deep..."
It's full of stars!
Marvin the Martian would be very angry if we found his hidden cave...
Verrrry angry indeed...
This is my signature. There are many like it but this one is mine.
What would you call an atmosphere where the planet in hollow and the ecosystem exists inside the crust?
Has anyone coined a term?
Maybe it's an "intmosphere" and the hole is the entrance.
Uh. A circular, totally black hole. Where we can't see light on ANY side of it. Right. Maybe you could take another picture of that area and make sure it wasn't some sort of fluke before we jump to crazy speculations like these?
Ahhh, that Torchwood and their lasers....
Leia -- "The cave is colapsing"
Han -- "This is no cave"
Leia -- "What?!"
[Time Lapse. They reach a cliff and look over the edge.]
Zapp: Behold: The Great Stone Face of Mars.
Fry: Hm.
Zapp: The only known entrance to the Martian reservation.
Leela: What about the Great Stone Ass of Mars?
Zapp: Well, yeah, but it's way over the other side of the planet.
-- Futurama, Where the buggalo roam
I don't blame you, man. I wouldn't want a guy like Quaid porkin' my old lady.
of Calcutta now got a twin.
I wonder how much tissue Mars uses in a year to wipe its hole.
Thankyou, thankyou, enough applause already.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
...who thinks it looks like a researcher stubbed out a cigarette on a photo of the Martian surface?;-)
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
It's a mohole for terraforming!
Great! Thats enough to barely connect a device to a router using an rj45 connection... Can we send some equipment out there now for Internet3?
Infiltrated dot Net
Oookaaay...
What?
It's the planet drain hole? That's why they all died off because some knucklehead pulled the plug.
And they call themselves scientists.
looks like the well in 300...
Fitting, y'think?
They have missile silos already. *hides under desk*
JFK, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis live on Mars, and the MRO "found" their resort. Why else would it be so black?
Just in case, let's send Schwarzenegger to investigate.
"So that's where Osama bin Laden's been hiding."
"So that's where Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are."
"So what do you think of this Mars cave, as a hole?"
"Get your ass to Mars."
He uses the caves as a place to hide from the aliens.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
$10 says it's a bug on the lens.
It's the subsurface cannon barrel they used to fire their cylinders to invade Earth in 1898, 1938, and 1953. They may be readying for another attempt! When is the next opposition?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
This is the most exciting post about Mars in quite a while. I'm very curious to know what the inside of this cave looks like. Potentially, this could be a huge opportunity to see a whole lot of sedimentation. And possible liquid water in the bottom? How cool would that be?
--- Tao
It's Dick Cheney's soul, placed in a blind trust for the duration of his public service.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
There is so much to know about Mars that we don't.
No light is reflected back, which is kind of spooky. What can be inferred about the depth? How deep would it have to be for the HiRES camera stop sensing the light that is reflected?
It's nice and round, that's unusual. There is no crater ejecta so I'm guessing nothing hit it. I'm not a geologist, but aren't giant round holes in otherwise homogeneous flat terrain a bit uncommon?
Is there any radar in orbit with enough resolution to bounce a signal down one of these? I'm just so full of questions and awe.
I'll be checking unmanned spaceflight for theories to these questions. Awesome site.
Finaly the proof...
the first colonization site
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just don't let the UAC move in and we'll all be fine. Oh, you might want to send a lone space marine in to investigate first to avoid possible killings of everyone on Mars.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
If you read the preprint (PDF), you'd note that luckily, one of the caves actually was imaged with the floor sunlit, giving the authors the ability to calculate the depth of that particular cave. This was covered on May 23rd on the Planetary Society blog.
in this closeup. Note the little martians.
What?
Gives me the impression as is the mars is actually hollow beneath its surface. Perhaps giant dust eating termites are living on this planet?
Does the crater HAVE to be deep? I mean, maybe it is lined on the inside with a low emissivity & reflectivity material which did not get altered due it's being in a shadow from the sun? Here's to hoping that the cavity is small and not a big deal... Cheers! -- Vig
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
I for one vote that we send our mars mission to a landing place within a fair distance of this great anomaly. Seriously...if for no other reason than to have a small vacation spot for the crew to go visit. Something interesting away from the normal day to day like growing vegetables for food and doing mineral samples. This would be a great scientific AND social easter egg for them (and us).
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
There's a log in the hole in the bottom of Mars There's a log in the hole in the bottom of Mars There's a log, there's a log There's a log in the hole in the bottom of Mars. There's a branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of Mars There's a branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of Mars There's a branch, there's a branch There's a branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of Mars.
There may be a Space Slug in there!
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
At last we have the answer to the burning question: Is there a hole on mars?
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
I'm not clicking on the link. Giant black hole? Arsia Mons? The story submitter is just trying to get me to click on the goatse link methinks.
Before looking at the picture, my first thought was that it would be Mars Rover camera showing it falling into the pit. Can you imagine being the one who programmed it's course and everyone asking how he/she missed dodging that!? I wonder what the guys at NASA would figure out to get it out of something like that. :)
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Does this mean men are from Venus and women are from Mars?
I guess that's what happens when you leave the door to Mount Doom unlocked :)
Kythe
To me this is exciting. Imagine, hundreds of years from now this cavern may be visited by our descendants, and they will probably be just as crazy as we are today and thus will do things like this.
Ah, the future. I really want to stick around to see as much of it as possible!
Read my Very Short "Stories"
The discussion is over. You are the winner.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
From Mars to Jupiter:
Why can't I quit you?!
Ok this is on top of a lava plain? I'm not that great with geology but doesn't this imply a hard crusty top like here on Earth? Why is it so hard to believe that there is a massive cave under a lava plain? 300ft isn't that huge considering the other features on this planet. If the hole opens to a larger underground area...the light may not as easily reflect back up out of the cave. Think about it...if you have a deep cave that is 300ft wide and it opens up into a vase like structure...the light will have a dificult time reaching back out of the cave.
I wouldn't hide there while trying to evade imperial forces...
The article says that the lack of ejected material rules out an impact, but it certainly does not rule out an impact into the roof of a dome (likely a lava-formed dome given the material)... whether from space or from a volcano (any within several miles?). There'd be little to no kick-back of debris if it simply punhced through.
It could be a structural collapse, but it's awfuly round.
Does this make anyone else think of Alpha Centauri? Thermal boreholes give lots of energy, but they raise temperatures in the surrounding 8 sectors - not necessarily a bad thing on Mars.
I don't see any roads, farms, mines or solar collectors, though. You're never going to grow the colony and win the game without farm sectors.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Speed holes
Sorry someone had to say it
.. they found it!
Obligatory "The Far Side" cartoon reference (slightly embellished):
Upon investigating further, scientists discovered a broken piano in the large black spot (as well as thousands if not millions of missing aircraft, broken computers, loose change, small animals and socks)... it turns out that the spot the sun never shines wasn't in Iowa! It was on Mars!
Well, now we know where to stick it where the Sun don't shine.
-6d
Given the fact that it's on the side of a volcano, and the fact that it's in the middle of a lava field, the most likely answer is that it opens into a lava tube. Most likely a small meteorite hit the center of the circle and caused a circular fracture that fell into the underlying tube.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
According to one source, they've estimated that the hole is about 130 meters deep.
How deep would the hole need to be to provide a reasonable atmospheric pressure at the bottom? I realize it wouldn't be *breathable* atmosphere, but at least the pressure would be survivable.
Any ideas?
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
I'm no geologist but possibly is the story how the hole was made ? Because the spot lacks a raised rim or tossed out material called ejecta, researchers have ruled out the pit being an impact crater. So that leaves wind(?) , water(which would be a story) but a big river at 330 feet across, X ? , Y? , Z ?. What might make this story would be some informed geological speculation. Otherwise someone has just found a hole in the ground.
Clearly it's the vacated home of the Asteroid Worm in Star Wars: Episode V. He couldn't afford the rent anymore.
Cheers.
Mark
I know it sounds stupid - but could it be that it was an impact from a miniature black hole?
Education is the silver bullet.
Wormsign!
Stop Dreaming Homer. Its Not A Donut.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
After a giant cave was found on the plains of Arsia Mons scientists called a press conference to announce they have named it Mons Veneris.
And then they spent the rest of the press conference giggling and nudging each other.
=Hiredman
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
Bush's Brain.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
As if the Hollow Earth Society: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth/ needed any encouragement.
They just took a picture of Mars. using the hand select tool dew a rough circle, on a new layer filled it in in black. Then pillowed embossed it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
When and how can I purchase some of this new found realestate. Was thinking it might be a good site for future filmings of Batman and other movies which may involve caves as Hollywood is usually willing to pay big bucks for prime locals.
Legalize Green Today!
"I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, IN THE VAST PIT SUNK INTO THEIR PLANET, from which their shots were fired at us."
Wow... H.G. Wells was ahead of his time.
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
You can see on the one edge, at about 11:00-12:00 on the "cave" edge, where there is a string of tiny islands in the black goop. Explain that to me in terms of a cave feature... good luck!
stuff |
Goatse jokes/references
... does the hole run on linux?
Finally! An excuse for all that training I did on my Atari back in the 80s
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Don't ask me where His hands are. They are, of course, invisible.
Russia has announced plans to establish a copy on Uranus
Does this give me another excuse to praise the foresight of this computer game's creators?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
shadows from the left?
I, for one, welcome our underground Martian... Ah, never mind...
Dick Cheney ordered it bombed as a possible Al Qaida hideout.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
... if we're gonna find Lorien at the bottom?
It's easy to find something worth dying for. Do you have anything worth living for?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
"Deep hole", "mons", "ejecta"? I'm all hot and bothered now...
How can a hole in the ground be 'massive'?
I hear the landfills on Earth are all filling up... finally, a new hole to throw shit into!
Well, for a little while, anyway.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
http://www.fluoridealert.org/phosphate/sinkhole.jp g
s inkhole1.jpg
http://www.pahighways.com/graphics/pictures/US202
For goodness' sake, this is filed under "Science." Does anyone have a figure on the estimated "mass" of this cave?
I claim this planet in the name of House Atreides.
Stalagmite sticking up were the light can see the tip of it?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think it's obvious that this is where the darkness-loving creatures that inspired the film Pitch Black are hiding. Pity they're not likely to get a total eclipse for a long, long time.
"The hole is almost perfectly circular, over 1,000 feet across and 400 feet deep. It was formed as a limestone cave system during the last ice age when sea levels were much lower. As the ocean began to rise again the caves flooded, and the roof collapsed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blue_Hole
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Who wants to go spelunking in Summer 2010 (we should have some way to get there by then...)? I got a rope, anyone have mars suits we can use? I'm planning on getting a job as a sysadmin on the first human inhabited mars spaceship for my transportation to get there. If anyone else is interested, I'm sure they'll need janitors and cooks to come along! Sam
That would be a nice place to put one.
A Black Mourning Spider
There's a hole in my planet, dear NASA, a hole.
Then fill it, dear Martian, dear Martian,
Then fill it, dear Martion, fill it.
With what shall I fill it, dear NASA, dear NASA,
With what shall I fill it, dear NASA, with what?
With crashed space probes, dear Martian, dear Martian,
With crashed space probes, dear Martian, space probes.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Clearly this is Martian Censorship. The Martians are preventing the disclosure of sensitive locations so that they aren't published on Google Mars.
- Yes, I am posting at a -1, and no I will not use a proxy to bypass my circumstances.
Hmm, your list could be a nice fit next to the Evil Overlord list.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
Before we get all excited about the possibility of a hole in the ground, I would like to take this opportunity to remind Slashdaughters that Mars is basically for a realistic purposes just a bright star in the night sky, nothing more.
... ...We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a stupid war, so why shouldn't we spend the same on a science project that holds out the possibility of uniting all mankind.
There is nothing gained by spending hundreds of billions of dollars going there.
But,
- There is a real limit to the number of projects that we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on before we run out of money and have nothing but dreams and rocks to show for our money. Also the money spent on the insane war hasn't been earned yet. It's been financed out of future obligations that our grandchildren must pay or suffer Argentinian-style economic collapse.
- Mankind doesn't give a shit about rockets unless they are carrying hydrogen-to-helium conversion machines being delivered to people who are different from themselves. One of the arguments for spending billions of dollars on the Apollo moon project was the unity of mankind bullshit. Playing golf on the moon didn't stop all the massacres that have happened since then. Pol Pot didn't look at the moon and think 'humankind has been there in the spirit of peace, therefore I should not order the murder of millions of my own people just because they wear glasses'. Osama didn't walk out of his cave, glance at the moon, and think 'if I order airliners full of people to be crashed into buildings full of people, then I be violating the spirit of the people who have traveled there in the name of peace'. No, and neither will walking on any dot in the night sky change the basic nature of uncivilized people.
So there may be a cave on Mars? So what? Grow up. We face climate change and peak oil in your lifetime. Dream about how you're going to feed, protect, and educate your grandchildren instead of being the first to enter some hole in the ground of what is just a dot in the night sky.
Be realistic, the 21st century demands it.
Sorry, this was a real stinker of a movie. Not one good quote to throw around here.
Who wrote this article? Space.com needs some new journalists. Whoever it is kind of writes like a 6th grader.
At this point, as far as I can tell, there are a huge number of possibilities and no information to distinguish between them.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
So THAT'S what happened when Beagle 2 landed.
My first though was that it looked like a cenote. They are built from limestone though so it would have to be by a different mechanism. My other thought was it might be a lava tube or a volcanic neck where the magma settled back out. I'm surprised that it hasn't been filled in by millennia of blowing sand so it must be rather young or constantly kept clear somehow. Maybe it is an alien portal and the hollow earth people got it right but for the wrong planet.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Be it electron hole, black hole, ozone hole or mars hole. Now we will pour billions of dollars in this mars hole. Way to go!
as much as i would like there to be a giant cave, it looks to me to be at best a sinkhole that has filled in with a very dark material.
Inapposite, not "aposite". Note to self: you're a moron.
sigs, as if you care.
Some holes don't need further study.
Blank until
So that's where Mel's Hole went!
I mean, people with big holes shout all the time.
A big hole found in ARSia mons ?????
Of course, where else would you find one ?
All you had to do was turn up the gamma!
He starts the article with an anecdote mentioning how he once mentioned the planet 'yoo-RAY-nus' to someone only to be corrected. After checking the dictionary (he doesn't mention which one), he learned that the correct pronunciation was 'YOO-rih-nus'.
This essay is reprinted in 1988 in the anthology "The Relativity of Wrong", Pinnacle Books, ISBN 1-55817-169-X
... welcome our new Martian cave-dwelling masters
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/0 3/159239
"Did you know the hole's only natural enemy is the pile?"
read my comics, please, at http://www.funfactorycomic.com
Seriously, zoom in on the north (? top in the image) edge, there's a part where it's black at the bottom of the cliff, then a little ways out from that there's a rise with more material showing before the main body of "blackness".
An aerial photograph of a lake with dark water (or a lake of other dark fluid - magma? oil? vegemite?) looks exactly like this, around the edges you'll get the occasional off-shore rise.
I don't know what this really is on Mars, but that north edge is a little too weird for just a sinkhole, and overall the light just stops too abruptly -- just as though the crater, hole, pit, whatever were filled to just below the surface with a dark fluid. (The Blue Hole offshore Belize, which I've dived, looks a lot like this from above the surface too.)
Also, check the east rim, there looks like a landslide with a talus slope spreading out, stopping at the same "fluid level" as the rest.
Or maybe it's all just a badly-timed April Fool's joke. The thing looks more like a clever fake than anything likely to be found on Mars.
-- Alastair
yea, couldn't this be kind of like a super volcano here on earth where there was a huge pool of lava and then it receded leaving an empty space. Here on earth those generally collapse into a caldera but maybe on mars it didn't and when something big hit it, it just formed a big hole. Since the crust is thin, there is nothing to eject.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Hope that the bugger doesn't come flyin' outta that hole!
I've got some of those carpenter bee holes on my wood deck. Looks just like the picture.
A bit smaller, though...
Ok, I guess I'll be the one to put into words what slashdot is collectively thinking...
Well, I for one welcome our new hole-dwelling overlords!
(sigh)
Privacy Statement: We value your privacy! It is very valuable. That's why we try to sell it whenever we can.
mod parent down: -1 asshattery
That's no cave! That's a giant puddle of oil.
Clearly a result of Mars' former lush watery vegetative past.
Seriously, what if that were oil? There'd be a Mars expedition program the likes of which we've not yet seen. It would make the Apollo moon program look like Cub Pack 13's model rocketry club.
Are we sure this isn't just a promotional gimmick for "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer"?
You'd expect all those canals to be connected to a reservoir or something.
The black part is not pure black, actually. There appears to be some structure inside the hole.
I ran the HiRISE cut-out image through photoshop (using a stark black-white striped image gradient) and some structure appears to come out in the black region. It's way down on one side of the color spectrum, but I'm able to see about 4 layers of gradient in the black. Perhaps a professional image analysis could bring out more.
With my limited imaging experience (undergrad astrophysics) it doesn't seem to me like the data that comes out is merely random instrument noise. It looks sort of like broad hilly terrain variations of a scale size similar to those outside the hole.
If someone could recommend a free image hosting service that can handle getting slashdotted, I'd be happy to post my tweaked version of the HiRISE image.
-b
Privacy Statement: We value your privacy! It is very valuable. That's why we try to sell it whenever we can.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Little green spelunkers.
Seriously, it's a ridge on the rim casting a shadow (the shadow is so stark because light isn't scattered by the Martian atmosphere to the degree it is on Earth). If you look at 4:00 and 5:00 on the same photo, you'll see similar ridges with different lighting (there's also a tiny one, only a few pixels across, at about 6:00).
There you go, mystery solved by using simple observation.
Blank until
Based on the altitude, I'd guess with you on the lava dome hypothesis. There are plenty of earthly structures which happen to be eerily round as well. I know some sinkholes have been posted, but I think that it reminds me most of this one
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
How can a hole in a planet be massive? Aren't they just open space with some atmosphere thrown it?
could be a secret alien base
He who controls the spice, controls the universe.
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
Use care when approaching.
It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port.
It's a congregation of perfectly black rectangles each measuring 1 by 4 by 9.
Its a shadow listening base!
Where is ambassador Kosh when you need him?
I may not be a smart man, but I know what an inode is.
Obviously, it's a Stargate.
Shai-Hulud
Bah - just rub the camera in that spot and it'll send back images there.
some plucky astronaut need only go into the cave, find the alien hand-shaped control panel and start the terraforming machine.. voila! Instant Earth.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
I think that this is a flagrant act of defiance by Marvin Martian, the warlord leader of the Dark Side Axis Of Terror, in refusing to abandon his plans of destroying the Earth.
This "hole" is either a giant bunker that he is going to hide his suspected WMD in, or it could be a protective facility where he is building a giant space ray gun so he can destroy the Earth, in defiance of intergalactic law.
I propose that Congress give $374 billion to the Duck Dodgers of the 24th 1/2 Century so they can eliminate Mr. Martian and the Dark Side from this galaxy.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
The monolith is at the bottom.
No, I will not work for your startup
Maybe it is just the place "where the sun don't shine."
This looks like the part of the roof of a large dome fell in. The area inside is likely much larger then the hole we can see. It must have fallen "recently" (few hundred thousand years??) or else blowing sand would have filled it up.
Lava tubes form when a river of lava flows fast and the top surface cools and becomes solid and then the liquid flows out from under the "frozen" surface. This could be a lava tube with a thin section of roof that fell down.
In other news, four thousand holes in Blackburn Lancashire ...
Quickly! To Mars! Paris Hilton has escaped!
This has got to be better than Utah salt mines or Pennsylvania Dutch country... lets put our radioactive rods in there!
The Admin and the Engineer
...it sort of resembles a salt or gypsum crust over a dead (and missing) marsh, so the whole "pit" might be an expansive but shallow cavity with a bottom only a few decimeters below the hole. The lack of detail could be a simple camera contrast artifact, easy enough to accomplish with Tri-X film pushed to 400 or 1200 ASA (and surely no lightweight NASA camera can be that sensitive?).
There seems to be another smaller hole at 2 o'clock, and maybe some similar but unpunctured features about 11 o'clock farther on.
And of course the possibility that Martian "flow" features are really highly electrically-charged nanoparticulates is still to be ruled out (things we know are actually on Mars now, as opposed to flowing water which might have been there then), so the crust-over-cavity hypothesis could be caused by totally unfamilar materials science.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
headline: Mars Rover Falls Into Bottomless Hole
subheadline: NASA blames metric/Imperial conversion
a great place for the Millenium Falcon to hide from the Imperial Fleet.
[Insert pithy quote here]
He lied, it's mars and not moon.
http://www.yahoobreakingnews.com/
... a massive manhole cover was recently discovered on the surface of Mars.
Have gnu, will travel.
Don't you mean Darth Cheney, lord of the Sith?
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
obviously a black hole. Mars must have been stuck in the opening trying to enter.
This whole story vanishes next week when some genius realises Phobos was between the Sun and orbital module...
http://www.scifilm.org/tv/st-tng/st-tng1-23.html
It's a sinkhole.
Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
That goatse.cx's hole has been found not bottomless ? :)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
It's their way of playing a goatse on the rest of humanity.
Someone must have dropped a supergate on the surface and activated it - it makes perfect sense.
Star Wars asteroid worm
It's a giant worm hole/den. I know those wormy bastards like to colonize asteroids, but planets? Well, then again it makes sense given how close Mars is to the asteroid belt.
Wiki image of asteroid belt
As you can see by the photos, this is just a normal planetary bunghole. It's purpose is to allow built-up & excess planetary gases a place to expel. Every so many years it simply fires off. We have a similar place on Earth. It's called the Middle East. (Although ours is ringed with pimples)