NASA satellites have spotted what looks like seven cave openings on the 12 mile high slopes of Arsia Mons, one of three Martian volcanoes, situated near the planet's equator, that are collectively known as Tharsis Montes. The images were taken by High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) equipment on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey probes. Measurements taken using Odyssey’s thermal imaging technology, comparing the temperatures of the dark circles during the planet’s day and night, indicate that they are of a cavernous nature. The dark pits appear to be vertical shafts, cut through ancient lava flow, with entrances ranging from 328 to 820 feet in diameter. The discovery is prompting speculation about the possibility of underground habitats for as yet undiscovered life forms on the planet. "Whether these are just deep vertical shafts or openings into spacious caverns, they are entries to the subsurface of Mars,” says scientist Tim Titus, an astrophysicist with USGS. "Somewhere on Mars, caves might provide a protected niche for past or current life, or shelter for humans in the future."
In other space-related news, scientists have discovered that bacterial life forms sent into space become far deadlier, a worrying finding given that the human immune system is compromised by space travel. Scientists observed a change in 167 of the genes of salmonella samples sent into space aboard the Atlantis STS-115 shuttle mission in September 2006. After the carefully contained germs returned from their trip, scientists observed a vastly increased virulence in experiments on mice. After 25 days just 10% of mice exposed to the space salmonella were still alive, compared to 40% of the control group, which were given an entirely earthbound strain. "Wherever humans go, microbes go, you can't sterilize humans. Wherever we go, under the oceans or orbiting the earth, the microbes go with us, and it's important that we understand ... how they're going to change," explains research leader Cheryl Nickerson, an associate professor at the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at Arizona State University.
Meanwhile marketing executive Paul Jenkins plans to exploit the possibility of life beyond earth, however deadly, by selling space on giant horizontal billboards that will be visible from outer space. The first three of these monster adverts, which are made of mesh attached to frames that span 20,000 square meters (nearly 4 times the size of the Dallas Cowboys’s playing field), will be placed near Heathrow airport for air passengers to view. Jenkins’ company, Ad Air, is planning similar billboard sites in Europe, Japan, China, Korea, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and the U.S.. “Such size leads to an unprecedented audience impact,” says the company’s website. “They are quite simply overwhelmed by the scale of the advertisement.” Let’s hope the cave-dwelling Martians like what we’re selling.
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