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."

Comments

Before we get all excited

[Simonetta]

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.

  There is nothing gained by spending hundreds of billions of dollars going there.

  But, ... ...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 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.