Commanding the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera aboard
NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, a group of 16 seventh-grade students from
California looked for lava tubes on the surface of Mars. They found what
they were looking for, but they also discovered a small black feature
straddling one of the tubes.
The feature near the Pavonis Mons volcano was a hole, punched in the
top of a hollow tube. It's a cave on Mars, otherwise known as a "skylight."
INTERVIEW:
There may be lava tube skylights on Mars, but the Moon has them too.
Discovery News talks to Carolyn van der Bogert about a recent lunar
discovery.

The students, from Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, California,
were participating in the Mars Student Imaging Program (MSIP), a part
of Arizona State University's Mars Education Program. This program
engages youngsters in real Mars research by getting them to ask
questions about the Red Planet's geology. They then find the answers by
getting NASA to send observation commands to Odyssey.
It turns out this program has done an awful lot more than engaging
the younger generation in space science, they have directly contributed
to NASA's Mars Program!
Glen Cushing, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist, has discovered
skylight features using THEMIS in the past (see Irene's 2007 Discovery
News article "Mars
Caves Revealed in Images"). But when addressing the students,
Cushing made it very clear that their skylight has never been seen
before.
"This pit is certainly new to us," said Cushing. "And it is only the
second one known to be associated with Pavonis Mons."
He estimates this new skylight to be around 190×160 meters wide and
at least 115 meters deep.
So what's next? Well, the students have submitted their find as a
candidate for imaging by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
(HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). HiRISE has
powerful optics, able to see the surface at 30 centimeters per pixel, so
if the mission is used to image the site, their skylight may reveal
some more of its secrets.
Image: The Mars skylight discovered by Evergreen Middle School
students (NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)
Source: Physorg.com

Seventh Graders Discover Martian Cave

Analysis by Ian O'Neill
Fri Jun 18, 2010

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