Places not to be missed if you go to Mars in the future

Mars has towering volcanoes alongside deep valleys, many spectacular locations for future exploration.

Illustration of an astronaut on Mars. (Photo: Victor Habbick Visions/Getty Images).

Mars is a planet with a diverse and very contrasting terrain with high mountains, deep valleys and impact craters that may contain water, an extremely attractive place for tourists to visit, once we can conquer the Red Planet.

1. Mount Olympus

(Photo: NASA/MOLA Science Team).

Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in the Solar System. It is located in the Tharsis volcanic region, which covers an area of ​​about 295,000 km².

Mount Olympus is about 25 km high, nearly 3 times the height of Mount Everest on Earth. Olympus is a giant shield volcano, with a crater that forms a flat area about 85 km wide, formed after lava flowed down the mountainside. The slope is only 5% so visitors can climb it.

2. Tharsis Volcanic Area

(Photo: NASA/JPL).

If you visit Mount Olympus, you should also combine your visit with a visit to the other volcanoes in the Tharsis Volcanic Area. There are 12 giant volcanoes on a land area stretching about 4,000 km.

Like Mount Olympus, these mountains are much larger than those on Earth, probably because the gravity on Mars is weaker, so the mountains are not pulled down by their weight and can grow taller. These mountains erupted 2 billion years ago, which is about half the history of Mars.

3. Marineris Valley

(Photo: NASA)

Mars is not only home to the Solar System's tallest volcano, but also its largest canyon.

The Marineris Valley runs for about 3,000 km, which is more than four times the length of the Grand Canyon in the United States. Scientists are not sure how the Marineris Valley formed, but there are a few ideas about how it did.

Most scientists believe that the formation of the Tharsis volcanic region contributed to the creation of the Marineris Valley. Lava flowing through the volcanic region pushed the crust up, breaking it into faults in other areas. Over time, these faults became the Marineris Valley.

4. North Pole and South Pole

(Photo: NASA/JPL/USGUS).

The two frozen places on Mars are the North Pole and the South Pole. The North Pole, pictured above, was explored in person by the Phoenix lander in 2008, while the South Pole has only been studied through satellite observations.

In winter, the temperatures at the poles are so cold that carbon dioxide condenses in the atmosphere into ice that forms on the surface. Conversely, in summer, carbon dioxide melts and rises into the air, the carbon dioxide in the northern hemisphere completely disappears, leaving a layer of water ice, but in the southern hemisphere, some carbon dioxide ice remains.

Changes in ice conditions have a major impact on Mars' climate, causing winds and other phenomena.

5. Gale Crater and Mount Sharp

(Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU).

After the landing of the Curiosity rover in 2012, Gale Crater became famous with information that there was much evidence of the presence of water in this area in the past.

Curiosity is currently climbing to the top of Mount Sharp to observe geological features in each layer of the mountain. One interesting discovery of Curiosity is that this area has complex organic molecules and the concentration of methane in the atmosphere varies with the seasons. Methane is an element that can be emitted by microorganisms, so its presence is one of the evidences of the existence of life.

6. Medusae Fossae Formation

(Photo: ESA).

The Medusae Fossae geological formation is one of the strangest places on Mars. Some have even speculated that it contains evidence of a UFO impact.

Scientific observations suggest that this area may be a concentration of volcanic sediments. Over time, wind has eroded the rocks into strange shapes.

Research in 2018 showed that the volcanoes here evolved over a period of more than 500 million years. Volcanic eruptions during that time warmed the Martian climate, as greenhouse gases released by volcanoes were released into the atmosphere.

7. Seasonal dark streaks at Hale impact crater

(Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona).

There is also a very strange place on Mars. During the hot season, there are depressions running along the slopes. It is difficult to explain why these lines appear.

The above photo was taken at Hale Impact Crater, and image analysis shows evidence of water. There are several theories as to why water is there, but on-site investigation is needed to provide a definitive answer.

However, there is a problem with this: if there really is water here and it is inhabited by alien microorganisms, we should not get too close to avoid the risk of infection.

8. Ghost Sand Dunes in the Dark Labyrinth and Hellas Basin

(Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona).

Mars is a planet whose surface is largely shaped by wind today, since all of its water evaporated long ago. However, we can still see plenty of evidence of ancient water, such as the Ghost Dunes in the Dark Labyrinth and the Hellas Basin.

Researchers say that these places used to have hills tens of meters high, but later these hills were submerged in water or lava so only the base remained while the tops were eroded.

These dunes show how winds worked on ancient Mars, and climatologists use them to infer the ancient environment there. They also suspect that there may have been bacteria hiding in these shielded dunes, so they avoided radiation and were not blown away by the wind.