Mud flows differently on Mars

Today’s Video of the Day from Lancaster University describes an investigation into tens of thousands of mysterious landforms on Mars that look like they were created by lava flows.

Lionel Wilson is a professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Lancaster. 

“We performed experiments in a vacuum chamber to simulate the release of mud on Mars. This is of interest because we see many flow-like features on Mars in spacecraft images, but they have not yet been visited by any of the roving vehicles on the surface and there is some ambiguity about whether they are flows of lava or mud,” explained Professor Wilson. 

The experiments revealed that mud on Mars flows much like lava does on Earth.

The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer

Video Credit: Lancaster University/Czech Academy of Sciences