- ESA’s Mars Express orbiter captured images of a huge crater lake at the planet’s North Pole.
- Using data collected by the mission, ESA has created a virtual video of a flyby of the area.
- Mars once had liquid water on its surface, but now it is too cold to support water in any form other than ice for most of the year.
Do you want to see something totally amazing? Just look up. It is a Martian lake sitting in the middle of a huge impact crater. Well, at least it would be a lake if Mars were a little warmer and had an atmosphere to protect water from being carried into space.
It is a huge piece of ice that is 50 miles wide and extends more than a mile inside the crater. On Earth, that would be a good-sized lake, but on Mars, it’s been reduced to a frozen disk that hides at the North Pole of the Red Planet.
The incredible image you see above was captured by the Mars Express orbiter from the European Space Agency. The spacecraft is equipped with a high-resolution camera that allows it to send some pretty impressive images. The original image (the one you see above) was taken many months ago, but the European Space Agency was not yet finished.
Now, using all the images and data the orbiter has gathered from the area, the space agency has put together a truly impressive video of a virtual “flyover” of the crater. It offers an even greater sense of scale and really lets you imagine what an aquatic vacation destination would be like on a parallel version of Mars where the planet retained its atmosphere.
Located in the northern lowlands of the Red Planet, south of the vast Olympia Undae dune field that partly surrounds the northern polar cap of Mars, this well-preserved impact crater is filled with water ice year-round. The crater floor is located two kilometers below its rim, enclosing a 1.8 km thick domed deposit representing a large non-polar ice deposit on Mars.
The water ice is permanently stable inside the Korolev crater because the deepest part of this depression acts as a natural cold trap. The air on the ice cools down and is therefore heavier compared to the surrounding air: since air is a poor conductor of heat, the water ice mound is effectively protected against heating and sublimation.
Crater lakes are not uncommon on the planets and moons of our solar system. The same goes for Earth, in fact, which has more than one body of water that can be directly attributed to a large impact of an object in space. The colossal Lonar Lake in India is the result of an asteroid impact sometime between 35,000 and 50,000 years ago. It filled with water and then turned pink, although scientists are still trying to figure out that last part.
It is believed that Mars was once the type of place where you would find huge rivers and lakes. There is evidence that the planet once had a large amount of liquid water on its surface, and knowing that means that scientists are eager to find evidence of past lives.
Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games for the past decade, covering the latest news and trends in virtual reality, handheld devices, smartphones, and future technology. Most recently, Mike served as technical editor at The Daily Dot, and has appeared on USA Today, Time.com, and countless other websites and in print. His love of reporting is second only to his addiction to games.
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