Moving to the neighborhood is going to cost a lot. When humans make it to the red planet, subterranean caves will be the best option for shelter. The rocky hollows on Earth and the moon are used as a buffer against the harsh conditions of Mars.
Nine leading cave candidates were identified in a presentation this month at the Geological Society of America. The caves are close to landing sites that are accessible to a lightweight rover.
The structures may offer a respite from the challenging environment on Mars. She said that everything at the surface is subject to harsh radiation, meteorite bombardment, and large day to night temperature swings.
A group of people consulted the Mars Global Cave Candidate Catalog in order to find a home on Mars. There are over 1,000 candidate caves and other strange looking features on Mars in this compendium. It's considered to be the first Martian multiple listing service.
The researchers narrowed the catalog by imposing two criteria, just like any home buyer would. They needed a cave to be within 60 miles of a landing site. High-resolution imagery was stipulated.
A landing site should be below an elevation of around 3,300 feet. The places that are relatively low-lying are good landing sites because they give the craft more time to slow down.
She said thatMars has enough atmosphere that you can't discount it, but not enough to give you a significant amount of Aerobraking. If you don't have enough space between when you hit the top of the atmosphere and where you're supposed to land, it's going to be very difficult to do the entry, descent and landing sequence correctly.
Top-shelf imagery was required for each candidate. Until broker appropriate NASA's Mars Helicopter for Martian real estate photography, that honor goes to HiRISE. Ms. Bardabelias is the lead operations engineer for HiRISE, which is able to discern features on Mars as small as about 3 feet across, but has imaged less than 5% of the planet's surface to date.
The team looked at images of the caves that met their criteria. The team looked at the pit-like features after ignoring features like bridge-shaped rock formations. Only those that seemed to extend some distance underground were homed in on.
The biggest of the potential caves has an opening that could swallow a football field and is worth a closer look. None of the rovers currently operating on Mars are close enough to explore any of the caverns. New details about these caves will be revealed when follow-up HiRISE images are taken from different angles. Voting for your favorite cave will help the team decide what to take next.
The Astrogeology Science Center at the U.S. Geological Survey and the creator of the Mars Global Cave Candidate Catalog are not involved in this. It goes back to the dawn of humanity.
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