Mars has something to laugh about! The famous ‘Happy Face’ crater near the south pole of the Red Planet has grown significantly over the past decade.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter first recorded the tragic scene in 2011, using its powerful Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.
Researchers compared an image of the crater from October 2011 to one from 13 December 2020 and reported that the ‘mouth’ has become larger.
The growing laughter is caused by thermal erosion, as carbon dioxide evaporates and exposes more soil.
The ‘nose’ on the face has also grown, from two small dots to one large depression.
The MRO began analyzing Mars shortly after its arrival in 2006.
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Comparing images of the ‘happy face’ crater at Mars’ southern pole from 2011 to 2020, the researcher says that a decade of erosion has enlarged the ‘mouth’ and the turn nose from two small depressions to one hole together
‘You can see how nine years of this thermal erosion has made the’ mouth ‘of the face bigger,’ said Ross Beyer, a planetary scientist with the Sagan Center at the SETI Institute.
The ‘front’ also got some nose work: Initially there were two circular depressions.
But by 2020, ‘those two declines have escalated and merged,’ Beyer said.
Examining the face is more than just a move, though.
The ‘Happy Face’ crack was demolished by HiRISE on December 13, 2020. Study features like this will ‘help us understand long-term climate trends on the Red Planet,’ says researcher Ross Beyer
‘By measuring these changes during the Martian year scientists understand annual investment and pole frost removal,’ Beyer said.
‘And observing these sites over long periods of time helps us to understand climate trends further on the Red Planet.’
The smile on the figure is more pronounced due to the amount of frost lost due to thermal erosion, revealing more of the surface.
While emptying elsewhere on the planet, carbon dioxide ice forms near the poles – and moves throughout the year as the weather changes – causing some of ‘features’ appear.
The surface features we see actually represent different elevations and different ice densities on the surface.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived at the Red Planet in 2006 and recorded the ‘happy face’ in 2011, using the powerful High-Resolution Image Science Test (HiRISE) camera
The ‘blobby’ features in the polar cap result from the Sun removing the carbon dioxide into these circular patterns, ’Beyer explained.
This means that the CO2 goes straight from solid to gas without turning into liquid, which causes more erosion in the soil.
The pareidolia of human faces and other familiar images in landscapes and on objects is called pareidolia and is almost uncommon when it comes to Mars.
In late December, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express satellite captured an angel-like image, with a halo and wings, near the south pole of the Red Planet.
A Christmas ‘angel’ was seen between Ultimata Lingula, where the pole cap meets the surrounding fields, and Ultima Chasma.
The European Space Agency seized what appeared to be an ‘angel’ on the surface of Mars last Christmas, caused by fields of dunes exposed by melting ice caps. Other images seen on the planet include a gorilla, the Bat Signal and even Ed Asner
That area is usually covered with a mile-thick ice cap but, in summer, the ice is at its lowest and some ‘features’ can appear.
The angelic shape was evident due to the pattern and shape of nearby dune fields, which are rich in dark, rocky minerals such as pyroxene and olivine.
The angel’s hand, which seems to reach to the left, is a large sublimation pit, a seasonal feature that forms as ice turns to gas and leaves empty pockets and depressions in the surface of the angel. planet.
Over the years spectators have seen a rabbit, a dragon and a bat sign.
Last year, the MRO crater found an impact similar to that of Ed Asner, CNET reported.
The surface was first seen on the surface of Mars in 1976, in images taken as NASA’s Viking Orbiter 1.
Sympathy theories went wild, but it was finally proven to be an opportunity alignment of mineral dunes.