Crashed spaceship on Mars might have formed explosion, say UFO fans

New Delhi : Where scientists are perplexed about the strange rock formation in the Mars, UFO fans believe that UFO spaceship might have crashed on the red planet. The Medusae Fosse Formation has been spotted by the Mariner spacecraft in the 60s. But, as per a new study, it was formed by explosive volcanic eruptions which shot jets of ash and rock into the sky of ancient Mars and could have affected the habitability of the Red Planet.

New research by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore suggests the formation was deposited during explosive volcanic eruptions on the Red Planet more than 3 billion years ago. The formation is about one-fifth as large as the continental United States and 100 times more massive than the largest explosive volcanic deposit on Earth, making it the largest known explosive volcanic deposit in the solar system, according to the study’s authors.

This is an enormous deposit, not only on a Martian surface, but also in terms of the solar system, because we do not know of any other deposit that is like this,’ said lead author Lujendra Ojha, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Formation of the Medusae Fossae would have marked a pivotal point in Mars’s history, according to the study’s authors. The eruptions that created the deposit could have discharged huge amounts of climate changing gases into Mars’s atmosphere and ejected enough water to cover Mars in a global ocean more than 4 inches thick, Ojha said.

During the eruptions, the greenhouse gases spawned the Medusae Fossae could have warmed Mars’s surface enough for water to remain liquid at its surface, but toxic volcanic gases like hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide would have altered the chemistry of Mars’s surface and atmosphere. Both processes would have affected Mars’s prospective for habitability, Ojha said. The Medusae Fossae Formation consists of hills and mounds of sedimentary rock straddling Mars’s equator.