Skip to main content

Citizen scientists are helping to map Mars’s strange ridge features

Members of the public are helping to map unusual ridge features in the Jezero crater on Mars, near the area where the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter are currently exploring. Thousands of citizen scientists have helped to map out ridge networks that can give clues to how water flowed on Mars billions of years ago, as part of a recently published paper.

Researchers from Arizona State University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory invited the public to help classify data from a number of orbiting Mars instruments, including the NASA Mars Odyssey orbiter’s THEMIS camera and the Mars Reconnaissance orbiter’s CTX and HiRISE instruments. Through the Zooniverse platform, citizen scientists identified a total of 953 polygonal ridge networks in an area covering around 20% of Mars’s surface.

Map of polygonal ridge networks (black dots) identified in mapping area (dashed black outline), covering approximately a fifth of Mars’ total surface area.
Map of polygonal ridge networks (black dots) identified in mapping area (dashed black outline), covering approximately a fifth of Mars’ total surface area. The Mars Perseverance rover landing site is shown in purple. Background: Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter Elevation Map. NASA/JPL/GSFC

“Citizen scientists played an integral role in this research because these features are essentially patterns at the surface, so almost anyone with a computer and internet can help identify these patterns using images of Mars,” one of the authors, Aditya Khuller, said in a statement.

Recommended Videos

The ridge networks were most often identified in extremely old terrain that was up to 4 billion years old, which is around the time that Mars is thought to have had liquid water flowing on its surface. Similar ridges have been found to have clays in previous research, which is important as clays tend to form in the presence of water. Though many of the ridges are now covered in dust, which makes them hard to analyze, this suggests that they could have formed due to water flowing on or near the surface.

Unusual ridge networks on Mars may provide clues about the history of the Red Planet.
Unusual ridge networks on Mars may provide clues about the history of the Red Planet. NASA/JPL/MSSS/Caltech Murray Lab/Esri

The researchers want to continue inviting the public to help with the mapping work. “We hope to eventually map the entire planet with the help of citizen scientists,” Khuller said. “If we are lucky, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover might be able to confirm these findings, but the nearest set of ridges is a few kilometers away, so they might only be visited on a potential extended mission.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Auroras and radiation from solar storms spotted on Mars
The specks in this scene were caused by charged particles from a solar storm hitting a camera aboard NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. Curiosity uses its navigation cameras to try and capture images of dust devils and wind gusts, like the one seen here.

The specks in this scene were caused by charged particles from a solar storm hitting a camera aboard NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. Curiosity uses its navigation cameras to try and capture images of dust devils and wind gusts, like the one seen here. NASA/JPL-Caltech

The recent solar storms caused epic events here on Earth, where auroras were visible across much of the globe last month. These storms, caused by heightened activity from the sun, don't only affect our planet though -- they also affect Mars. NASA missions like the Curiosity rover have been observing the effects of solar storms there, where the very thin atmosphere creates a potentially dangerous radiation environment. If we ever want to send people to visit the red planet, we're going to need to learn more about this radiation and how it's affected by events like solar storms.

Read more
Fly over the trenches of Mars in stunning video of Nili Fossae
Fly across Nili Fossae with Mars Express.

A video simulates a flyover of the Nili Fossae trenches on Mars. CREDIT ESA/DLR/FU Berlin & NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Data: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/NASA/MSSS ; Data processing and animation: Björn Schreiner, Greg Michael, Image Processing Group (FU Berlin) ; Music: Björn Schreiner ; Created by Freie Universität Berlin Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing 2024 (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

A new video from the European Space Agency (ESA) shows a stunning flyover of Mars's Nili Fossae trenches that was constructed using data from the Mars Express mission. The dramatic landscapes of Mars include huge mountains like Olympus Mons, the largest mountain in the solar system, and deep canyons.

Read more
NASA to help with the launch of Europe’s unlucky Mars rover
An artist's impression of the Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars.

An artist's impression of the Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars. ESA/Mlabspace

Europe's unlucky Mars rover, known as Rosalind Franklin, has gotten a boost thanks to a new cooperation agreement with NASA. The European Space Agency (ESA) had previously partnered with Russian space agency Roscosmos on the rover project, but that was suspended following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Now, NASA has formally agreed to contribute launch services and parts of the landing propulsion system to the project, aiming for a 2028 launch.

Read more