Rock formation on Mars looks like a lonely dome lost near an oddly shaped crater
You might be wondering why, for some time now, we’ve started showing you glimpses of Mars, captured on camera by the various material elements that humanity has put in place on or around the alien world. The answer is simple: maybe we go there, maybe even while alive, and we might as well get to know the place a little better.
So yes, we tentatively started our Getting to Know Mars section some time ago, where things like this will be featured.
And this thing here is a dome-shaped outcrop in the Orcus Patera region of the planet, a tiny elliptical depression measuring 380 km (240 miles) long and 140 km (87 miles) wide. The edge of the depression rises 1.8 km (1.11 miles) above the surrounding plains, and the depression itself is up to 600 meters (1,968 feet) below. of its surroundings.
The origins of the outcrop are not fully known and it may have been formed as a result of volcanic or tectonic processes. As for the crater, scientists do not believe that it could have been at one point a round impact box, deformed by the compressive forces.
But most people put their money on the Orcus Patera being the result of an oblique impact, “perhaps within five degrees of the horizontal”, according to the European Space Agency.
The main photo in this room shows one of the most recent images of the area, taken at an altitude of 173 miles (278 km) by the HiRISE camera installed on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in September 2015, and recently republished by NASA and the University of Arizona.
