MARS In 4K

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:04:08]Tyonium Casma and Eisma are large canyons on Mars and are a major part of the largest canyon system in the solar system. Over 4,000 km, this great canyon would go almost all the way across the United States. And the name for the whole system of canyons is V Marineris.

[00:04:25]The word kasma refers to an elongate steep-sided depression and both tythonium and escasma are located at the western end of V's marineris.

[00:04:35]Eiscasma is about 938 km long, 120 km wide and over 8 km deep. Tyonium casma is 810 km long and varies in width from roughly 10 to 110 km and plunges to a maximum depth of 3.5 to 7 km below the surrounding surface.

[00:04:55]In comparison, the Grand Canyon in Arizona is about 175 km long, 30 km wide, and only 1.6 km deep. The canyons of V's Marineris were formed by a variety of geological processes.

[00:05:10]Probably tectonic rifting, water, and wind action, volcanism, and glacial activity all have played major roles in its formation and evolution. Landslides have also enlarged the canyon walls and created deposits on the canyon floor.

[00:05:24]Weathering of the surface and influx of dust and sand have modified the canyon floor, both creating and modifying layered materials. The dark layered deposits, so-called interior layered deposits, are marked by a system of polygonal cracks through which the underlying lighter colored rock can be seen. The interior layered deposits are still a major topic of research. While parts of the deposits are most probably volcanic, in other areas, a sedimentary origin has been proposed.

[00:07:00]NASA's Perseverance Mars rover recently took a self-portrait against a sweeping backdrop of ancient Martian terrain at a location called Lack the Charms.

[00:07:10]The selfie shows Perseverance training its mast on a rocky outcrop on which it had just made a circular abrasion patch with the western rim of Jazer Crater stretching into the background. The selfie was captured on March 11, 2026 during the rover's deepest push west beyond the crater. Perseverance is in its fifth science campaign known as the Northern Rim campaign of its mission on the red planet. The lack to chararmms region represents some of the most scientifically compelling terrain the rover has visited. Perseverance took the selfie when the rover entered a remote untamed region beyond the jazer crater rim dubbed wild west. This is the farthest west the rover has been since it landed at Jazer a little over 5 years ago. The rover had just araided and analyzed an outcrop, and the rover was sitting in a spot that provided a great view of both the jazer rim and the local terrain outside of the crater. During arraiding, the rover ground down a portion of the rock's surface, allowing scientists to analyze what's inside. The technique enabled scientists to determine that the outcrop is composed of ignous minerals that likely predate the formation of Jeerro Crater. Ignous rocks with large mineral crystals form underground as molten rock cools and solidifies.

[00:08:25]Perseverance acquired the selfie, its sixth since landing on Mars in 2021.

[00:08:30]Using the wide angle topographic sensor for operations and engineering camera mounted at the end of its robotic arm.

[00:10:58]Gullies are common on steep slopes of many impact craters on Mars. Usually, each gully has a dendritic al cove at its head, a fan-shaped apron at its base, and a single thread of insized channel linking the two, giving the whole gully an hourglass shape. Although thousands have been found, they appear to be restricted to only certain areas of the planet. When gullies were first observed, there was a lot of excitement surrounding them because similar features form on Earth through the action of liquid water.

[00:11:26]However, liquid water is currently unstable on the surface of Mars.

[00:11:30]Long-term observations have prompted many scientists to question a liquid water origin for the gullies and alternative ideas have been suggested.

[00:11:37]These include flows of salt briney water as the salt would allow water to be liquid under lower temperatures than those for pure water. also dry processes which do not require the action of liquid water at all. NASA has also recently reported that gullies on the surface of Mars were mostly formed by the seasonal freezing of carbon dioxide and not by that of liquid water. Recent experiments and observations in Martian conditions suggest that blocks of frozen carbon dioxide can slide and sublimate downslope, essentially digging out channels and building debris aprons without needing any liquid water.

[00:12:12]Monitoring of gullies could help scientists better understand the conditions where the gullies are active and in doing so help understand how they form This is a 90 m wide impact crater located in the Meridini planum region of Mars called Santa Maria. The crater is a relatively young crater but old enough to collect active sand dunes withorked sand ripples in its interior. The crater is about 6 km from the rim of Endeavor Crater which contains spectral indications of filicilicates or claybearing minerals that are believed to have formed in wet conditions that could have been more habitable than the later acidic conditions in which sulfates also discovered on Mars have been formed. The scene looks eastward across the crater and portions of the rim of a much larger crater, Endurance, appear on the horizon. The panorama spans 225 compass degrees from northnorthwest on the left to souths southwest on the right. Since orbital observations and rover data had suggested the presence of waterbearing sulfate minerals along the crater southeastern rim, the Opportunity rover spent several weeks extensively investigating the crater's interior to better understand the geometry of rock layers and look for chemical signatures of past wet environments.

[00:16:57]Opportunity arrived at the crater on December 15, 2010 and was positioned at the southeastern rim where it took several images and analyzed the crater's bedrock, particularly looking at iron rich sulfates before heading eastwards towards Endeavor Crater.

[00:17:12]Santa Maria is remarkably preserved and boasts little erosion, which allowed the rover to clearly study the undisturbed ejector rays and blocks that resulted from the original meteor impact.