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Extraordinary Giant Structures Discovered Beneath Mars’ Surface

Extraordinary Giant Structures Discovered Beneath Mars’ Surface

Giant, dense structures have been discovered beneath the surface of Mars and they are leaving experts both mystified and excited.The first of these, confirmed by researchers in a fascinating paper, is an underground mass measuring around 1,750 kilometres (just over 1,000 miles) across, at a depth of 1,100 kilometres (684 miles).The mysterious anomaly is lurking beneath Tharsis Montes - a vast volcanic region which holds the largest volcano in the solar system: Olympus Mons.The findings are so significant that they could challenge a fundamental concept of geology and alter our view of the future of the Red Planet."There seems to be a big mass (something light) deep in Mars' layer, possibly rising from the mantle," the authors wrote in their study, which is published in the journal JGR: Planets."It shows that Mars might still have active movements happening inside it, making new volcanic things on the surface."Despite ongoing analysis, it remains unclear how volcanically active Mars is. Whilst there are no active volcanic features on the planet, the Tharsis region resurfaced in the recent geological past - within the last few tens of millions of years, as Universe Todaynotes.The researchers, led by Bart Root of the Delft University of Technology, suspect that the huge mass is, in fact, a mantle plume which is rising up under Tharsis Montes."[The findings] suggest that a plume head is currently flowing upward towards the lithosphere to generate active volcanism in the geological future," the authors write in their paper.In other words, if this mantle plume were, eventually, to reach the surface of Mars, it could potentially lead to some volcanic pyrotechnics in the future.Furthermore, the fact that Tharsis Montes is much more elevated than the rest of Mars' surface suggests that the large mass is pushing it upwards.This goes against the widely established geological theory known as flexural isostasy, which states that when something heavy loads the lithosphere (the solid, outermost layer of the planet), it responds by sinking."This means we need to rethink how we understand the support for the big volcano and its surroundings," the authors stress.In addition, the team found other gravitational anomalies, including enigmatic dense structures under Mars' northern polar plains.These strange forms lie buried under a thick, smooth sediment layer that was likely deposited on an ancient seabed, and are approximately 300 to 400 kg/m3 denser than their surroundings, according to Universe Today.For context, Earth's Moon is also home to some gravitational anomalies, which are associated with giant impact basins.Scientists believe that the impactors which created the basins were denser than the Moon, and so their mass became part of the Moon after they crashed into it.Yet, there’s no visible trace of Mars’s newly-discovered gravitational anomalies on the surface of the planet.Speaking of these polar finds, Dr Root said in a statement: "These dense structures could be volcanic in origin or could be compacted material due to ancient impacts.“There are around 20 features of varying sizes that we have identified dotted around the area surrounding the north polar cap - one of which resembles the shape of a dog.”Interestingly, he added: “There seems to be no trace of them at the surface. However, through gravity data, we have a tantalising glimpse into the older history of the northern hemisphere of Mars."Still, Root and his colleagues concede that in order to truly get to the bottom of these mysterious structures, they need more data. And to gather this data, they’ll need to embark upon a new mission.This proposed mission is now known as the Martian Quantum Gravity (MaQuls), and would be based on the same technology used in previous missions which mapped the Moon's and Earth's gravity, respectively."Observations with MaQuIs would enable us to better explore the subsurface of Mars,” Dr Lisa Wörner of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), told the Europlanet Science Congress 2024.“This would help us to find out more about these mysterious hidden features and study ongoing mantle convection, as well as understand dynamic surface processes like atmospheric seasonal changes and the detection of ground water reservoirs.”

5/20/2025 10:25:00 AM

Watch: Two Rare Phenomena Light Up the Sky

On the night of May 17, the sky witnessed two rare and unexpectedly coinciding phenomena: a sudden geomagnetic storm and a mysterious light feature piercing through the aurora borealis, leaving skywatchers in awe.The moderate-level geomagnetic storm (G2) began early on Friday, May 16, after Earth was struck by a glancing blow from a coronal mass ejection (CME) caused by a massive solar eruption in the sun’s northern hemisphere on May 12.Although initial forecasts suggested the CME would miss Earth, its bird-wing-like expanse exceeded predictions, allowing some of its material to reach Earth's atmosphere four days after the eruption.The bigger surprise came when a bright white streak appeared in the skies over Colorado and other parts of the United States. At first, it resembled the rare aurora-associated phenomenon known as "STEVE." However, observers quickly realized it was something entirely different.

5/20/2025 7:20:00 AM

Decades-long mystery of ginger cats revealed

Garfield, Puss in Boots, Aristocats' Toulouse - cultural icons maybe, ginger most certainly.And now scientists across two continents have uncovered the DNA mystery that has given our furry friends, particularly males, their notable colour.They discovered that ginger cats are missing a section of their genetic code, which means the cells responsible for their skin, eye and fur tone produce lighter colours.The breakthrough has brought delight to the scientists but also the thousands of cat lovers that originally crowdfunded the research.The scientists hope solving the puzzle could also help shed light on whether orange coloured cats are at increased risk of certain health conditions.It has been known for decades that it is genetics that gives orange tabby cats their distinctive colouring, but exactly where in the genetic code has evaded scientists till now.Two teams of scientists at Kyushu University in Japan and Stanford University in the US have now revealed the mystery in simultaneous papers published on Thursday.What the teams found was that in the cells responsible for giving a cat its skin, hair follicles and eyes their colour - melanocytes - one gene, ARHGAP36, was much more active.Genes are made up of pieces of DNA which give instructions to a cat's cells, like other living creatures, on how to function.By comparing the DNA from dozens of cats with and without orange fur they found that those with ginger colouring had a section of DNA code missing within this ARHGAP36 gene.Without this DNA the activity of the ARHGAP36 is not suppressed i.e. it is more active. The scientists believe that the gene instructs those melanocytes to produce lighter pigment.For decades scientists have observed that cats with completely ginger colouring are far more likely to be male. This tallies with the fact that the gene is carried on the X chromosome.Chromosomes are larger sections of DNA, and male cats like other mammals have an X and a Y chromosome, which carry different number of genes.As it a gene only on the X chromosome in this case controlling the pigment production then one missing piece of DNA is enough to turn a cat fully ginger.In comparison female cats have two X chromosomes so the DNA needs to be missing in both chromosomes to increase lighter pigment production to the same extent - it means a mixed colouring is more likely."These ginger and black patches form because, early in development, one X chromosome in each cell is randomly switched off," explains Prof Hiroyuki Sasaki, geneticist at Kyushu University."As cells divide, this creates areas with different active coat colour genes, resulting in distinct patches."Although couched in science, the study originally started off as a passion project for Professor Sasaki.He had retired from his university post, but as a cat lover said he wanted to continue working to uncover the orange cat gene in the hope it could "contribute to the overcoming of cat diseases".He and his team raised 10.6m yen (£55,109) via crowdfunding for the research from thousands of fellow cat lovers across Japan and the world.One contributor wrote: "We are siblings in the first and third grades of elementary school. We donated with our pocket money. Use it for research on calico cats."The ARHGAP36 gene is also active in many other areas of the body including the brain and hormonal glands, and is considered important for development.The researchers think it is possible that the DNA mutation in the gene could cause other changes in these parts of the body linked to health conditions or temperament.The ARHGAP36 gene is found in humans and has been linked to skin cancer and hair loss."Many cat owners swear by the idea that different coat colours and patterns are linked with different personalities," said Prof Sasaki."There's no scientific evidence for this yet, but it's an intriguing idea and one I'd love to explore further."

5/15/2025 8:20:17 PM

Scientists Find 'Beyond Imagination' Creature in Ancient Amber

We know dinosaurs were around 99 million years ago, but now new research has identified a kind of parasitic wasp that was flying around back then (and which has a strange way of catching its prey).The species now called Sirenobethylus charybdis had a bizarre mechanism that worked like a Venus flytrap which caught the prey, and then the wasps impregnated them with their eggs, researchers noted in the journal BMC Biology.How was this new species discovered?Preserved in amber from the Cretaceous period, palaeontologists were able to analyse 16 specimens of the tiny wasps discovered in Myanmar.“When I looked at the first specimen, I noticed this expansion at the tip of the abdomen, and I thought this must be an air bubble. It’s quite often you see air bubbles around specimens in amber,” said study coauthor Lars Vilhelmsen, a wasp expert and curator at the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.“But then I looked at a few more specimens and then went back to the first one. This was actually part of the animal.”Following this finding, Vilhelmsen and his colleagues from Capital Normal University in Beijing concluded from looking at how each of the wasps was preserved in different positions, the structure was movable."Sometimes the lower flap, as we call it, is open, and sometimes it’s closed,” Vilhelmsen said. “It was clearly a movable structure and something that was used to grasp something.”Is this wasp comparable to any species that exist today?Today, the closest thing that exists in nature would be the Venus flytrap - a carnivorous plant that has leaves that spring shut on insects which land on them, as per the study.“There’s no way you can know how an insect that died 100 million years ago was living. So you look for analogs in modern insect fauna. Do we have anything among wasps or other groups that looks like this?” he said.“And there’s no real analog within insects. We had to go all the way out of the animal kingdom into the plant kingdom to find something that remotely resembled this.”Not what it seemsThere's more to the wasp's Venus flytrap-like mechanism, and researchers reckon the insect likely did not intend to kill with it.Rather, the wasp used the injectee as an unintentional host for its eggs and released it once it had injected the eggs.Consequently, Vilhelmsen says the wasp's larvae started as parasites in the host body and inevitably would eat the host and noted this host would typically be a flying insect that is similar in size to Sirenobethylus charybdis.Nowadays, living parasitoid wasp species exhibit similar (but not the exact same) behaviour as described. For instance, cuckoo wasps lay their eggs in the nest of another wasp species and once hatched, the larvae feast on their new host’s young.Amber preservationFor palaeontologists, amber fossils provide great insight as various plants, flowers and creatures have been preserved in the tree resin from millions of years ago.In the case of the Sirenobethylus charybdis, found in the amber that came from Myanmar’s Kachin region near the border with China, several years ago and donated it to Capital Normal University’s Key Laboratory of Insect Evolution and Environmental Changes in 2016, the study says.However, the source of the amber has sparked ethical concerns with some palaeontologists calling for a ban on researching amber sourced from Myanmar after there was military coup in 2021.What is a “Cretaceous weirdo”?Sirenobethylus charybdis is one of the various insects from this time period described as a Sirenobethylus charybdis "Cretaceous weirdo".According to Phil Barden, an associate professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, this means it "had adaptations that are outside of the bounds of the critters that are alive today".“This is significant because there are around a million known insect species — even with all of that living diversity, there are still lots of unexpected surprises in the fossil record that are beyond imagination,” he added.

4/29/2025 9:05:00 AM

Remains of 5,000-Year-Old Noblewoman Found in Peru Dig

Archaeologists in Peru said Thursday they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas."What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman," archaeologist David Palomino told AFP.The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for over 30 years until becoming an archaeological site in the 1990s.Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000 years BC, contained skin, part of the nails and hair and was wrapped in a shroud made of several layers of fabric and a mantle of macaw feathers.Macaws are colorful birds that belong to the parrot family.The woman's funerary trousseau, which was presented to reporters at the culture ministry, included a toucan's beak, a stone bowl and a straw basket.Preliminary analyses indicate that the remains found in December belong to a woman between 20 and 35 years old who was 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall, and wearing a headdress that represented her elevated social status.Palomino told reporters the find showed that while "it was generally thought that rulers were men, or that they had more prominent roles in society" women had "played a very important role in the Caral civilization."Caral society developed between 3000 and 1800 BC, around the same time as other great cultures in Mesopotamia, Egypt and China.The city is situated in the fertile Supe valley, around 180 kilometers (113 miles) north of Lima and 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Pacific Ocean.It was declared a UN World Heritage Site in 2009.

4/25/2025 11:38:29 AM

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Extraordinary Giant Structures Discovered Beneath Mars’ Surface

Giant, dense structures have been discovered beneath the surface of Mars and they are leaving experts both mystified and excited.The first of these, confirmed by researchers in a fascinating paper, is an underground mass measuring around 1,750 kilometres (just over 1,000 miles) across, at a depth of 1,100 kilometres (684 miles).The mysterious anomaly is lurking beneath Tharsis Montes - a vast volcanic region which holds the largest volcano in the solar system: Olympus Mons.The findings are so significant that they could challenge a fundamental concept of geology and alter our view of the future of the Red Planet."There seems to be a big mass (something light) deep in Mars' layer, possibly rising from the mantle," the authors wrote in their study, which is published in the journal JGR: Planets."It shows that Mars might still have active movements happening inside it, making new volcanic things on the surface."Despite ongoing analysis, it remains unclear how volcanically active Mars is. Whilst there are no active volcanic features on the planet, the Tharsis region resurfaced in the recent geological past - within the last few tens of millions of years, as Universe Todaynotes.The researchers, led by Bart Root of the Delft University of Technology, suspect that the huge mass is, in fact, a mantle plume which is rising up under Tharsis Montes."[The findings] suggest that a plume head is currently flowing upward towards the lithosphere to generate active volcanism in the geological future," the authors write in their paper.In other words, if this mantle plume were, eventually, to reach the surface of Mars, it could potentially lead to some volcanic pyrotechnics in the future.Furthermore, the fact that Tharsis Montes is much more elevated than the rest of Mars' surface suggests that the large mass is pushing it upwards.This goes against the widely established geological theory known as flexural isostasy, which states that when something heavy loads the lithosphere (the solid, outermost layer of the planet), it responds by sinking."This means we need to rethink how we understand the support for the big volcano and its surroundings," the authors stress.In addition, the team found other gravitational anomalies, including enigmatic dense structures under Mars' northern polar plains.These strange forms lie buried under a thick, smooth sediment layer that was likely deposited on an ancient seabed, and are approximately 300 to 400 kg/m3 denser than their surroundings, according to Universe Today.For context, Earth's Moon is also home to some gravitational anomalies, which are associated with giant impact basins.Scientists believe that the impactors which created the basins were denser than the Moon, and so their mass became part of the Moon after they crashed into it.Yet, there’s no visible trace of Mars’s newly-discovered gravitational anomalies on the surface of the planet.Speaking of these polar finds, Dr Root said in a statement: "These dense structures could be volcanic in origin or could be compacted material due to ancient impacts.“There are around 20 features of varying sizes that we have identified dotted around the area surrounding the north polar cap - one of which resembles the shape of a dog.”Interestingly, he added: “There seems to be no trace of them at the surface. However, through gravity data, we have a tantalising glimpse into the older history of the northern hemisphere of Mars."Still, Root and his colleagues concede that in order to truly get to the bottom of these mysterious structures, they need more data. And to gather this data, they’ll need to embark upon a new mission.This proposed mission is now known as the Martian Quantum Gravity (MaQuls), and would be based on the same technology used in previous missions which mapped the Moon's and Earth's gravity, respectively."Observations with MaQuIs would enable us to better explore the subsurface of Mars,” Dr Lisa Wörner of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), told the Europlanet Science Congress 2024.“This would help us to find out more about these mysterious hidden features and study ongoing mantle convection, as well as understand dynamic surface processes like atmospheric seasonal changes and the detection of ground water reservoirs.”

5/20/2025 10:25:00 AM

Watch: Two Rare Phenomena Light Up the Sky

On the night of May 17, the sky witnessed two rare and unexpectedly coinciding phenomena: a sudden geomagnetic storm and a mysterious light feature piercing through the aurora borealis, leaving skywatchers in awe.The moderate-level geomagnetic storm (G2) began early on Friday, May 16, after Earth was struck by a glancing blow from a coronal mass ejection (CME) caused by a massive solar eruption in the sun’s northern hemisphere on May 12.Although initial forecasts suggested the CME would miss Earth, its bird-wing-like expanse exceeded predictions, allowing some of its material to reach Earth's atmosphere four days after the eruption.The bigger surprise came when a bright white streak appeared in the skies over Colorado and other parts of the United States. At first, it resembled the rare aurora-associated phenomenon known as "STEVE." However, observers quickly realized it was something entirely different.

5/20/2025 7:20:00 AM

Decades-long mystery of ginger cats revealed

Garfield, Puss in Boots, Aristocats' Toulouse - cultural icons maybe, ginger most certainly.And now scientists across two continents have uncovered the DNA mystery that has given our furry friends, particularly males, their notable colour.They discovered that ginger cats are missing a section of their genetic code, which means the cells responsible for their skin, eye and fur tone produce lighter colours.The breakthrough has brought delight to the scientists but also the thousands of cat lovers that originally crowdfunded the research.The scientists hope solving the puzzle could also help shed light on whether orange coloured cats are at increased risk of certain health conditions.It has been known for decades that it is genetics that gives orange tabby cats their distinctive colouring, but exactly where in the genetic code has evaded scientists till now.Two teams of scientists at Kyushu University in Japan and Stanford University in the US have now revealed the mystery in simultaneous papers published on Thursday.What the teams found was that in the cells responsible for giving a cat its skin, hair follicles and eyes their colour - melanocytes - one gene, ARHGAP36, was much more active.Genes are made up of pieces of DNA which give instructions to a cat's cells, like other living creatures, on how to function.By comparing the DNA from dozens of cats with and without orange fur they found that those with ginger colouring had a section of DNA code missing within this ARHGAP36 gene.Without this DNA the activity of the ARHGAP36 is not suppressed i.e. it is more active. The scientists believe that the gene instructs those melanocytes to produce lighter pigment.For decades scientists have observed that cats with completely ginger colouring are far more likely to be male. This tallies with the fact that the gene is carried on the X chromosome.Chromosomes are larger sections of DNA, and male cats like other mammals have an X and a Y chromosome, which carry different number of genes.As it a gene only on the X chromosome in this case controlling the pigment production then one missing piece of DNA is enough to turn a cat fully ginger.In comparison female cats have two X chromosomes so the DNA needs to be missing in both chromosomes to increase lighter pigment production to the same extent - it means a mixed colouring is more likely."These ginger and black patches form because, early in development, one X chromosome in each cell is randomly switched off," explains Prof Hiroyuki Sasaki, geneticist at Kyushu University."As cells divide, this creates areas with different active coat colour genes, resulting in distinct patches."Although couched in science, the study originally started off as a passion project for Professor Sasaki.He had retired from his university post, but as a cat lover said he wanted to continue working to uncover the orange cat gene in the hope it could "contribute to the overcoming of cat diseases".He and his team raised 10.6m yen (£55,109) via crowdfunding for the research from thousands of fellow cat lovers across Japan and the world.One contributor wrote: "We are siblings in the first and third grades of elementary school. We donated with our pocket money. Use it for research on calico cats."The ARHGAP36 gene is also active in many other areas of the body including the brain and hormonal glands, and is considered important for development.The researchers think it is possible that the DNA mutation in the gene could cause other changes in these parts of the body linked to health conditions or temperament.The ARHGAP36 gene is found in humans and has been linked to skin cancer and hair loss."Many cat owners swear by the idea that different coat colours and patterns are linked with different personalities," said Prof Sasaki."There's no scientific evidence for this yet, but it's an intriguing idea and one I'd love to explore further."

5/15/2025 8:20:17 PM

Scientists Find 'Beyond Imagination' Creature in Ancient Amber

We know dinosaurs were around 99 million years ago, but now new research has identified a kind of parasitic wasp that was flying around back then (and which has a strange way of catching its prey).The species now called Sirenobethylus charybdis had a bizarre mechanism that worked like a Venus flytrap which caught the prey, and then the wasps impregnated them with their eggs, researchers noted in the journal BMC Biology.How was this new species discovered?Preserved in amber from the Cretaceous period, palaeontologists were able to analyse 16 specimens of the tiny wasps discovered in Myanmar.“When I looked at the first specimen, I noticed this expansion at the tip of the abdomen, and I thought this must be an air bubble. It’s quite often you see air bubbles around specimens in amber,” said study coauthor Lars Vilhelmsen, a wasp expert and curator at the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.“But then I looked at a few more specimens and then went back to the first one. This was actually part of the animal.”Following this finding, Vilhelmsen and his colleagues from Capital Normal University in Beijing concluded from looking at how each of the wasps was preserved in different positions, the structure was movable."Sometimes the lower flap, as we call it, is open, and sometimes it’s closed,” Vilhelmsen said. “It was clearly a movable structure and something that was used to grasp something.”Is this wasp comparable to any species that exist today?Today, the closest thing that exists in nature would be the Venus flytrap - a carnivorous plant that has leaves that spring shut on insects which land on them, as per the study.“There’s no way you can know how an insect that died 100 million years ago was living. So you look for analogs in modern insect fauna. Do we have anything among wasps or other groups that looks like this?” he said.“And there’s no real analog within insects. We had to go all the way out of the animal kingdom into the plant kingdom to find something that remotely resembled this.”Not what it seemsThere's more to the wasp's Venus flytrap-like mechanism, and researchers reckon the insect likely did not intend to kill with it.Rather, the wasp used the injectee as an unintentional host for its eggs and released it once it had injected the eggs.Consequently, Vilhelmsen says the wasp's larvae started as parasites in the host body and inevitably would eat the host and noted this host would typically be a flying insect that is similar in size to Sirenobethylus charybdis.Nowadays, living parasitoid wasp species exhibit similar (but not the exact same) behaviour as described. For instance, cuckoo wasps lay their eggs in the nest of another wasp species and once hatched, the larvae feast on their new host’s young.Amber preservationFor palaeontologists, amber fossils provide great insight as various plants, flowers and creatures have been preserved in the tree resin from millions of years ago.In the case of the Sirenobethylus charybdis, found in the amber that came from Myanmar’s Kachin region near the border with China, several years ago and donated it to Capital Normal University’s Key Laboratory of Insect Evolution and Environmental Changes in 2016, the study says.However, the source of the amber has sparked ethical concerns with some palaeontologists calling for a ban on researching amber sourced from Myanmar after there was military coup in 2021.What is a “Cretaceous weirdo”?Sirenobethylus charybdis is one of the various insects from this time period described as a Sirenobethylus charybdis "Cretaceous weirdo".According to Phil Barden, an associate professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, this means it "had adaptations that are outside of the bounds of the critters that are alive today".“This is significant because there are around a million known insect species — even with all of that living diversity, there are still lots of unexpected surprises in the fossil record that are beyond imagination,” he added.

4/29/2025 9:05:00 AM

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