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"NASA Orbiter Finds Possible Cave Skylights on Mars"
NASA Press Release
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/sep/HQ_07206_Mars_Caves.html

: NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven
: possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano. The find is
: fueling interest in potential underground habitats and sparking
: searches for caverns elsewhere on the Red Planet.

: Very dark, nearly circular features ranging in diameter from about
: 328 to 820 feet puzzled researchers who found them in images taken
: by NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor orbiters. Using
: Mars Odyssey's infrared camera to check the daytime and nighttime
: temperatures of the circles, scientists concluded that they could
: be windows into underground spaces.

: Evidence that the holes may be openings to cavernous spaces comes
: from the temperature differences detected from infrared images
: taken in the afternoon and in the pre-dawn morning. From day to
: night, temperatures of the holes change only about one-third as
: much as the change in temperature of surrounding ground surface.

: "They are cooler than the surrounding surface in the day and warmer
: at night," said Glen Cushing of the U.S. Geological Survey's
: Astrogeology Team and of Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff,
: Ariz. "Their thermal behavior is not as steady as large caves on
: Earth that often maintain a fairly constant temperature, but it is
: consistent with these being deep holes in the ground."

: A report of the discovery of the possible cave skylights by Cushing
: and his co-authors was published online recently by the journal
: Geophysical Research Letters.

: "Whether these are just deep vertical shafts or openings into
: spacious caverns, they are entries to the subsurface of Mars," said
: co-author Tim Titus of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff.
: "Somewhere on Mars, caves might provide a protected niche for past
: or current life, or shelter for humans in the future."

: The discovered holes, dubbed "Seven Sisters," are at some of the
: highest altitudes on the planet, on a volcano named Arsia Mons near
: Mars' tallest mountain.

: "These are at such extreme altitude, they are poor candidates
: either for use as human habitation or for having microbial life,"
: Cushing said. "Even if life has ever existed on Mars, it may not
: have migrated to this height."

: The new report proposes that the deep holes on Arsia Mons probably
: formed as underground stresses around the volcano caused spreading
: and faults that opened spaces beneath the surface. Some of the
: holes are in line with strings of bowl-shaped pits where surface
: material has apparently collapsed to fill the gap created by a
: linear fault.

: The observations have prompted researchers using Mars Odyssey and
: NASA's newer Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to examine the Seven
: Sisters. The goal is to find other openings to underground spaces
: at lower elevations that are more accessible to future missions to
: Mars.

: "The key to finding these was looking for temperature anomalies at
: night -- warm spots," said Phil Christensen of Arizona State
: University, Tempe, principal investigator for the Thermal Emission
: Imaging System on Mars Odyssey. That instrument produced both
: visible-light and infrared images researchers used for examining
: the possible caves.

: "No other instrument at Mars could give the thermal information
: crucial to this research," said the project scientist for Mars
: Odyssey, Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
: Pasadena, Calif. "This is a great example of the exciting
: discoveries Odyssey continues to make." Mars Odyssey reached Mars
: in 2001, years before any of the other spacecraft currently
: examining the planet. Its predecessor, Mars Global Surveyor, ended
: its mission last year.

: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages Mars Odyssey and Mars
: Reconnaissance Orbiter for the NASA Science Mission Directorate,
: Washington. Arizona State University operates the Mars Odyssey's
: Thermal Emission Imaging System. For additional information about
: Mars Odyssey and the new findings, visit:

: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/odyssey

Mark Reiff