NASA has found unusual holes across Mars when the Curiosity rover was travelling down a broad valley named ‘Valle Grande’ on Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater.
Cameras spotted broad, shallow pits that stood out against the surrounding dusty landscape, according to NASA.
The photos were later combined and processed to build three-dimensional models of the surface, allowing scientists to measure the shapes and depths of the pits. “These might be evidence of changes in depositional conditions captured in close proximity to one another. ChemCam, MAHLI, and APXS analysed grey, rough, resistant layers that differed from the host bedrock, likely indicative of a different chemistry.”
these formations look entirely different, as Dr Michelle Minitti, MAHLI Deputy Principal Investigator, wrote in a blog post that “such pits are not uncommon”, but the “pits of this week were much broader and shallower than past features and were not accompanied by obvious objects that were once in the pits” While space agencies regularly photograph impact craters left by meteorites.
