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Martian Squishy Impact Crater Looks Like a Rose Frozen in Rock, Holds Some Mysteries

So, we’ve had Valentine’s Day this past week, the perfect opportunity for roses and other flowers and gifts to fly left and right, hitting your loved ones right in their hearts. Even Mars seems to have been celebrating the occasion and sent us this here image of a rose made of rocks.
Impact crater near the Elysium Mons volcano 6 photos
Photo: NASA/JPL/UArizona
Impact crater near the Elysium Mons volcanoElysium Mons volcano on MarsImpact crater near the Elysium Mons volcanoImpact crater near the Elysium Mons volcanoImpact crater near the Elysium Mons volcano
Granted, it’s not actually Mars that sent this back, but the HiRISE camera orbiting the planet and snapping pictures of it. And it’s not actually a rose seen from above we’re looking at, but a strangely-shaped impact crater, with some mysteries attached.

Scientists from NASA and the University of Arizona, who look at these things for a living, describe the crater, seen here as it was in 2010, as being part of “a small group of highly unusual” ones, discovered in the lowlands near the Elysium Mons volcano.

They’re unusual because of the squishy soil they sit on, which was probably soft when it was struck by whatever meteorite died there. Such a soft soil is not uncommon on the Red Planet, and generally, when rocks from space strike such areas, the resulting ejecta does not necessarily fly like pieces of hard rock, but “appears to have flowed like mud.”

“It is generally agreed that this is because there was a lot of ice in the ground and this ice was melted by the energy of the impact, producing a large amount of mud,” NASA says.

In the case of this particular crater, however, the ejecta is almost entirely vaporized. “More puzzling is the way that the crater appears to have collapsed into itself. It appears that there are some hard layers near the surface and then soft material that melts or vaporizes underneath. Indeed, HiRISE reveals a lot of rocky boulders associated with the hard layers.”

So, another mystery to add to the growing bag of Mars-related ones. Until it's solved, though, we'll see this one as a rose.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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