Skip to main content

See how volcanoes and tectonic activity shaped the Martian surface

Rover missions allow us to explore Mars from close up, but we can also gather a great deal of information about the planet using orbiting spacecraft which can capture images of the planet as they move around it. The European Space Agency (ESA)’s Mars Express orbiter has been in orbit around the planet since 2003, collecting information using tools like high-definition cameras, radar sounding, and atmospheric analysis.

Now, the orbiter has captured an image of a part of the Martian surface with interesting geology, showing deep valleys and tall ridges formed by activity beneath the planet’s surface stretching and tearing the crust above it.

Faults and scars near Tharsis province on Mars
Faults and scars near Tharsis province on Mars ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The orbiter captured this image of the Martian surface in the volcanic Tharsis province or Tharsis rise, close to the planet’s equator. It is part of the boundary region where the largely smooth and flat Northern hemisphere meets the mountainous and cratered Southern hemisphere.

Recommended Videos

The lines you can see across the image consist of two types of feature: Grabens and horsts, similar to ridges and valleys in that some areas protrude up above the surface and some sink down below. The structures are several kilometers wide and long, and are a few hundred meters deep.

You can also see that most of the structures run parallel to each other, but there are a few scratches running perpendicular to the others. These are caused by volcanic and tectonic activity in the Tharsis province, which hosts some of the largest volcanoes in the solar system. As the activity beneath the surface increased, it stretched the crust above it, creating the ridges. When the direction of the stress changed, it caused the perpendicular cracks to appear.

Topographic view of Tempe Fossae on Mars
Topographic view of Tempe Fossae on Mars ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The ESA also produced this color-coded topographic view of the same region, with points of high altitude shown in red and yellow and points of low altitude shown in green and blue. You can see that on the top right of the image, it is considerably lower and flatter than the left side. This smoothness was caused by the flow of lava over the surface long ago, filling in depressions and leaving a smoother exterior.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
See the stunning first images taken by the dark matter-hunting Euclid telescope
The Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33, is part of the Orion constellation. About 1,375 light-years away, it is the closest giant star-forming region to Earth. With Euclid, which captured this image, scientists hope to find many dim and previously unseen Jupiter-mass planets in their celestial infancy, as well as baby stars.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released the first full-color images taken by Euclid, a space telescope that was launched earlier this year to probe the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. Euclid will image a huge area of the sky to build up a 3D map of the universe, helping researchers to track the dark matter that is clustered around galaxies and the dark energy that counteracts gravity to push galaxies apart.

The Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33, is part of the Orion constellation. About 1,375 light-years away, it is the closest giant star-forming region to Earth. With Euclid, which captured this image, scientists hope to find many dim and previously unseen Jupiter-mass planets in their celestial infancy, as well as baby stars. ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay), G. Anselmi; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Read more
Map of Mars shows the location of ice beneath the planet’s surface
In this artist’s concept, NASA astronauts drill into the Martian subsurface. The agency has created new maps that show where ice is most likely to be easily accessible to future astronauts.

One of the challenges of sending human explorers to Mars is that, due to the logistics of the journey, they will have to be on the planet's surface for considerably longer than the missions of a few days which have been sent to the moon in the past. That means future explorers will need access to resources like food, water, and oxygen -- and rather than having to carry months' worth of supplies through space, it's far more efficient to find ways to produce those resources on Mars itself.

That's the idea behind searching for water ice deposits on Mars. There's plenty of ice on the surface around the planet's poles, but most mission concepts are more focused on the planet's equatorial region. The good news is that there is ice present in these areas too, but the bad news is that it's primarily located below the surface and is thus hard to locate.

Read more
Mars flyover video shows a stunning network of valleys
mars flyover video shows a stunning network of valleys esa

Fly across Mars’s ‘labyrinth of night’ with Mars Express

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a gorgeous video visualizing part of Mars’ Noctis Labyrinthus, a vast system of deep valleys that stretches for around 740 miles (1,190 kilometers), or for context, roughly equal to the length of Italy.

Read more