Colors of the Fatherland | NASA solves one of ‘Arabian Land’ mysteries on Mars

In the region of “Arab Earth” located on the planet Mars, scientists have long observed many puzzling scenes, for which they have not found an explanation. This gives a degraded and terraced appearance.

Now, NASA scientists have found a new and clearer explanation for the reason for the formation of these craters, which is the eruption of thousands of huge ancient volcanoes in this region, as a recent study indicates that the so- saying “super eruptions” occurred in the northern region of Mars called “Arabia Terra” or “Earth”. The Arabs “over a period of 500 million years, and its history dates back to about 4 billion years.

Researchers who studied the topography and mineral composition of the area made the discovery, and the results were published in a research article in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, according to the US network “Fox News”.

Previous explanations on the reasons for the terraces

“We first found 7 calderas, and this caldera was initially considered a caldera,” said Patrick Willey, a geologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who led the terrain analysis of the Ard al region. -Arab. , but scientists noticed in 2013 that they had no sign of making them so.

“We’ve been following all the research that says these volcanic holes are depressions caused by asteroid collision, and we’ve decided whether or not to prove it, and we’ve looked for ash that might have come from volcanoes, because this evidence doesn’t can’t go away, “Willey continued.

Together with Alexandra Matila Novak, a volcanologist at the Johns Hopkins Laboratory of Applied Physics, the team looked at their surface minerals.

Using images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Imaging Spectrometer, they studied the walls of grooves and craters hundreds or even thousands of kilometers from the calder, and found volcanic minerals turned into mud by the water.

Scientists created 3D topographic maps of the “Martian land of Arabia” and compared the mineral data to the maps in order to see the well-preserved ash layers.

Why is this region called the Land of Arabia?

It should be noted that the aforementioned region is located north of the Red Planet, and contains very many craters and heavily eroded craters, which indicates its age. For there are white spots which vary between light and dark, and these spots are among the characteristics of nature in the Arabian Peninsula.