Images of Curiosity's and the Endurance rover's tracks on Mars serve as a reminder of human creativity on a world that has been untouched for millennia. The two rovers, though, are not the only entities making their imprint on this desolate world; natural events are also at work. Thousands of trails made by tumbling stones have been investigated by several researchers at the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad. 


As humanity become more intrigued in the red Planet and seek to establish colonies there in the nearish term, these boulder trails can be used to detect recent seismic events on the planet. "Mars is especially live," says Dr. S Vijayan, Assistant professor of the Physical Research Laboratory's Planetary Science Division, who lead author of the study.


According to a study released last month in Geophysical Research Letters, these boulder trails disintegrate after 2 to 4 Martian years (4 to 8 Earth years), although they are seldom maintained on Earth. These ejections and traces can be used to identify extremely recent celestial surface activities. When a boulder falls, the regolith (Martian surface materials) on the surface is thrown out in a different configuration with each bounce. These patterns seem V-shaped on Mars, with the spread pointing downslope and non-uniform separation between each rebound. Bounce-to-bounce and boulder-to-boulder, the geographical dispersion of BFE changes.
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G GOWTHAM

25/01/2022 03:02 PM