NASA Proves Mars Isn’t Just One Big Desert

NASA Proves Mars Isn’t Just One Big Desert

If you’ve spent any time looking at the average satellite image of Mars, you’d be forgiven for concluding that our nearest planetary neighbour is actually just one gigantic sandy wasteland. But as this close-up image of the Aureum Chaos proves, Martians don’t just hide in the sand.

The Aureum Chaos is a light-toned deposit some 370km wide in the Valles Marineris. The area is pockmarked with canyons, around a kilometre deep, most likely formed by fluid motion — quite possibly ground water discharges — sometime in the past.

Minerals in the ground give it the light colour seen in this image, captured earlier this year by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

[NASA]

Picture: NASA


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.