While Mars rovers crawl the surface of the Red Planet, the European Mars Express probe remains in orbit, soon to be tapped as a communications relay point for NASA missions.
Spectacular pictures continue to come from the probe's research team, however. Today the European Space Agency released a setof year-old – but none the less beautiful – pictures of what researchers liken to a dry river delta on the planet's surface.
With ridges of rock and dirt meandering between deep depressions, the mouth of the so-called Tiu Valles channels appear to display characteristics similar to what would be formed in a river estuary, where the fresh water flow meets the tidal effects of the sea.
Scientists aren't sure what caused these formations on Mars. One possibility, they say, is that water or water-rich layers of surface material came into contact with lava, leading to these river-like ridges and holes.
The images were taken on June 10, 2006.
The mysterious ridges at the mouth of Tiu Valles, 2006 [ESA]
(Photo Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum))
