Dennis Mitchell’s seventh-grade science class at Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, California has discovered what appears to be a “Martian Skylight” – a hole in the roof of what may be a massive, as of yet undiscovered cave system on Mars.
How are seventh-graders making discoveries on Mars? Mr. Mitchell’s class is participating in the Mars Student Imaging Program at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University. The program allows students to pose a research question, then task a Mars-orbiting camera to capture images to answer their question.
The class originally set out to find lava tubes, which are a common volcanic feature on Earth and Mars.
“The students developed a research project focused on finding the most common locations of lava tubes on Mars,” Mitchell told Space.com. “Do they occur most often near the summit of a volcano, on its flanks, or the plains surrounding it?”
The pictures taken in response to their question by NASA’s Mars Odyssey Orbiter’s Thermal Emission Imaging System showed the lava tubes Mr. Mitchell’s students had hoped to find. They also showed a small, round black spot. Something that geologist Glen Cushing, who discovered a similar feature in his own 2007 study of other parts of Mars, thinks are collapsed sections of lava tube caves.
Cushing estimates this new pit to be 620 by 520 feet (190 by 160 meters) wide and 380 feet (115 meters) deep at the very least.
The students have submitted their site for further imaging by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which may be able to capture enough detail to see inside the hole to the caves below.
“The Mars Student Imaging Program is certainly one of the greatest educational programs ever developed,” Mitchell said. “It gives the students a good understanding of the way research is conducted and how that research can be important for the scientific community. This has been a wonderful experience.”
