volcanic Archives

September 13, 2024September 13, 2024 by Evan Gough

A Gravity Map of Mars Uncovers Subsurface Mysteries

In this new gravity map of Mars, the red circles show prominent volcanoes and the black circles show impact craters with a diameter larger than a few 100 km. A gravity high signal is located in the volcanic Tharsis Region (the red area in the center right of the image), which is surrounded by a ring of negative gravity anomaly (shown in blue). Credit: Root et al.

A team of scientists presented a new gravity map of Mars at the Europlanet Science Congress 2024. The map shows the presence of dense, large-scale structures under Mars’ long-gone ocean and that mantle processes are affecting Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System.