Scientists may have pinpointed a massive, oddly shaped volcano taller than Mount Everest on the surface of Mars — and it has been hiding in plain sight for decades, according to new research.
The possible identification of a previously unknown Martian volcano has made waves across the planetary sciences community since Mars Institute Chairman Dr. Pascal Lee, lead author of an abstract about the formation, presented the findings on March 13 at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.
The research has drummed up excitement — and attracted some skeptics.
Lee said he and Sourabh Shubham, a doctoral student of geology at the University of Maryland, College Park, have identified a volcano within Mars’ Noctis Labyrinthus region — a gnarled patch of terrain near the equator with a web of canyons. The volcano in the “Labyrinth of Night” may have eluded scientists despite years of satellite observation because it does not tower over its surrounding landscape, Lee said.
“It’s also deeply eroded, eaten up and collapsed by erosion to the point that unless you’re really looking for a volcano, you would be really hard-pressed to spot it very quickly,” he told CNN.
If the team is correct, the revelation could have broad implications for scientists’ understanding of Martian geology. And, Lee said, he hopes the discovery could help lure future exploratory missions to the area to search for water ice or even signs of life.
The smoking gun
Initially, the research team’s efforts led to a study presented in March 2023 that suggested the Noctis Labyrinthus region may be home to a massive glacier covered in salt deposits.
Since then, Lee and Shubham have pored through data collected by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, trying to determine whether water might still be frozen beneath the salt.
The hunt for water ice is key — it’s a resource that could be used to sustain human exploration on Mars or even converted into rocket fuel. While scouring the landscape, however, Lee said he was struck by “this little lava flow next to the glacier.”
The lava hadn’t yet been fully oxidized, a process that would turn it the same muddy orange hue as the surrounding surface, Lee said.
That indicated the lava might be relatively fresh — the first hint that an undetected volcano might be lurking nearby.
“We started looking at the landscape carefully,” Lee said. “And sure enough, when we examined the high points of this region, we noticed that they formed an arc.”
That arc is reminiscent of a shield volcano, Lee added, a type of volcano that also exists on Earth. Shield volcanoes are characterized by their broad, gently sloping sides — appearing wider than they are tall.
That finding led Lee and Shubham to gather more evidence, eventually determining that a 29,600-foot (9,022-metre) peak was actually the tip of a Martian volcano.
Olympus Mons, standing at at 25 kilometres (16 miles) tall, is the largest known volcano in the solar system. (NASA SVS via CNN Newsource)
That’s a few hundred feet taller than Mount Everest, which rises 29,029 feet (8,848 metres) above sea level.
Mapping Mars
Scientists have already cataloged and named more than a dozen volcanoes on Mars, including Olympus Mons, the tallest known volcano in our solar system.
Lee said he and Shubham are working to spell out the findings in a peer-reviewed paper, a more detailed work that could lend more credence to the idea across the scientific community.
But the hypothesis of the volcano’s existence is already attracting attention.
“It’s a big thing,” said Dr. Adrien Broquet, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the German Aerospace Center who has studied Martian volcanoes. “It’s as tall as the tallest mountain we have on the Earth. So, it’s not a small feature on Mars for which we’ve had a question mark. And we have plenty of question marks (about the surface of Mars.)”
A search for life in the Labyrinth of Night
The journey to identifying this volcano — which the team has provisionally named “Noctis volcano” — began in 2015, Lee said, when NASA asked the planetary science community to propose intriguing locations on Mars where the US space agency might land future human exploration missions.
Lee proposed a site just east of Noctis Labyrinthus, which was dubbed “Noctis landing.”
The location could be an ideal place to search for alien life on Mars, said Lee, who is also a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life.
“Of course, we’re not looking for a little green man with antennae,” Lee said. “But we’re looking for microbes that would not fit into the tree of life on Earth.”
Noctis Labyrinthus could be ideally situated for this hunt, according to Lee.
“If you want to look for ancient life, you drive east (from Noctis Labyrinthus) into the canyons,” Lee said, referring to Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in our solar system.
There, explorers could “sift through the rock layers” to scour for fossils, he said.
Or, Lee suggested, a mission could venture west to a volcanic region called the Tharsis plateau, where warm caves may harbor living microbes.
With such tantalizing potential, Lee has committed to studying Noctis Labyrinthus to build a case for sending exploratory missions there.
A volcano, a glacier and the history of Mars
The existence of a volcano in Noctis Labyrinthus could also help explain the creation of this bizarre landscape.
Scientists suspect magma bubbling up from Mars’ interior formed the labyrinthian valleys, but the details are up for debate.
One theory is that when the magma pushed up on the Martian crust, it cracked and splintered, leaving behind a maze of branching canyons.
Lee favours an alternative theory: This model suggests that the Martian crust in Noctis Labyrinthus is full of ice. And when magma seeped in, it melted or vaporized ice and rock beneath the surface, causing swaths of the terrain to cave in.
The existence of a volcano in the region, Lee said, might offer more support for the latter theory.
The science of certainty
Three scientists who were not involved in the research told CNN that they would not be surprised if a volcano were hidden near Noctis Labyrinthus.
Volcanoes of all shapes and sizes riddle the surface of the broader region, including the Tharsis plateau to the west of Noctis Labyrinthus.
However, Dr. Ernst Hauber, a staff scientist at the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Planetary Research, is one geologist in the community who would like to see a peer-reviewed paper before he accepts Lee and Shubham’s version of events.
“They are very vague about chronology, about the timing of events,” Hauber told CNN, referring to the brief abstract Lee and Shubham published.
Among Hauber’s questions: If the volcano could still be active, as Lee suggests, why hasn’t it poured lava into the surrounding canyons? Why aren’t there more visible signs of lava near the peak? Could this actually be an impact crater Lee is looking at?
“I’m a bit skeptical for several reasons,” Hauber said.
Broquet of the German Aerospace Center and Dr. David Horvath — a research scientist at the nonprofit Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona — both said in separate interviews they would like to see additional data supporting the ideas Lee and Shubham presented.
But Broquet and Horvath said they find the abstract intriguing.
“This does look like a really good candidate (for a volcano),” Horvath said.
Lee said he is welcoming input from other scientists, anxious for additional evidence to support his research. But he also expresses confidence.
“In this case, my sense is that there’s really no room for plausible alternate hypotheses,” Lee said, adding that he’s 85% to 90% certain he has located a new Martian volcano.
“But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” Lee added, quoting the late astronomer Carl Sagan, for whom he once worked as a teaching assistant.
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
Astronomy PhD candidate Veronika Dornan served as the astronomer in residence at Killarney Provincial Park. She’ll be back again in October when the nights are longer (and bug free). Dornan has delivered dozens of talks and shows at the W.J. McCallion Planetarium and in the community. (Photos by Veronika Dornan)
BY Jay Robb, Faculty of Science
July 16, 2024
Veronika Dornan followed up the April 8 total solar eclipse with another awe-inspiring celestial moment.
This time, the astronomy PhD candidate wasn’t cheering alongside thousands of people at McMaster — she was alone with a telescope in the heart of Killarney Provincial Park just before midnight.
Dornan had the park’s telescope pointed at one of the hundreds of globular star clusters that make up the Milky Way. She was seeing light from thousands of stars that had travelled more than 10,000 years to reach the Earth.
This time there was no cheering: All she could say was a quiet “wow”.
Dornan drove five hours north to spend a week at Killarney Park as the astronomer in residence. part of an outreach program run by the park in collaboration with the Allan I. Carswell Observatory at York University.
Dornan applied because the program combines her two favourite things — astronomy and the great outdoors. While she’s a lifelong camper, hiker and canoeist, it was her first trip to Killarney.
Bruce Waters, who’s taught astronomy to the public since 1981 and co-founded Stars over Killarney, warned Dornan that once she went to the park, she wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.
The park lived up to the hype. Everywhere she looked was like a painting, something “a certain Group of Seven had already thought many times over.”
The dome telescopes at Killarney Provincial Park.
She spent her days hiking the Granite Ridge, Crack and Chikanishing trails and kayaking on George Lake. At night, she went stargazing with campers — or at least tried to. The weather didn’t cooperate most evenings — instead of looking through the park’s two domed telescopes, Dornan improvised and gave talks in the amphitheatre beneath cloudy skies.
Dornan has delivered dozens of talks over the years in McMaster’s W.J. McCallion Planetarium and out in the community, but “it’s a bit more complicated when you’re talking about the stars while at the same time fighting for your life against swarms of bugs.”
When the campers called it a night and the clouds parted, Dornan spent hours observing the stars. “I seriously messed up my sleep schedule.”
She also gave astrophotography a try during her residency, capturing images of the Ring Nebula and the Great Hercules Cluster.
A star cluster image by Veronika Dornan
“People assume astronomers take their own photos. I needed quite a lot of guidance for how to take the images. It took a while to fiddle with the image properties, but I got my images.”
Dornan’s been invited back for another week-long residency in bug-free October, when longer nights offer more opportunities to explore and photograph the final frontier.
She’s aiming to defend her PhD thesis early next summer, then build a career that continues to combine research and outreach.
“Research leads to new discoveries which gives you exciting things to talk about. And if you’re not connecting with the public then what’s the point of doing research?”
