New Image of Mars Reveals a Crater Eerily Similar to a Huge, Creepy Eye

There is a new image of Mars snapped by a space craft.

There is a large, city-sized, unnamed crater on the surface of the red planet that looks like an enormous eye looking out to the stars. The purpose of the image is not to frighten you, but to help understand the geology and history of Mars.

The Aonia Terra region is located in the southern hemisphere of Mars and is home to the crater. The subject of the new Mars Express images is far from the biggest or most impressive, it's not far from theLowell crater, which is 200 kilometers across.

A violent period of the early Solar System known as the Late Heavy Bombardment may have caused the craters in the region to be damaged.

The process of seeding the baby planet with water and organic compounds was thought to have taken place on Earth.

We can use the evidence on Mars to understand more turbulent times in the solar system's history.

There is a map of the region.

There are clues about the composition of Mars that can be found in the Aonia Terra. New surface geologies and compositions are created by a violent impact. The new image shows a complex surface composition.

The eye crater is carved out by channels that were created by rivers of liquid water. Some of the darker material can be seen in the channels, and it's possible that it's a result of the erosion-resistant material that settles in dried-up riverbeds.

Smaller craters and flat-topped buttes can be seen in the region south of the crater, while the region to the north is less colorful.

There is a view of the crater.

The dark material can be seen in the center of the crater. The mounds and buttes can be seen in the crater, suggesting that it's a sort of storehouse for materials.

More detailed information about the crater and its surroundings, could be revealed by closer observations and a wider suite of instruments, but it's incredibly impressive what we can learn from images obtained at such a distance. The altitude of features and the colors of minerals are both captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera.

None of those data are indicative of anything on Mars. Does the red void look back when you stare into it?