Strange Black Streak Suddenly Appeared On Mars Near Tharsis Volcanic Plateau

Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com – A strange black streak has suddenly appeared on Mars near Tharsis volcanic plateau. What is could it possibly be? It wasn’t visible before. Is it a shadow? But if so, then from what? Could it simply be a cloud, or is it something else?

Maximilian Teodorescu of Magurele, Romania has studied and photographed the Red Planet for a long time, but he says he hasn’t seen this peculiar dark streak before.

Credit: Teodorescu of Magurele – Space Weather

It was on Friday night, October 22 that he photographed the Red Planet and suddenly noticed this unusual feature.

“There is a dark streak in the Tharsis volcanic plateau,” he told Space Weather.

He captured the dark streak on two images separated by about 40 minutes.

“The feature was not visible just a few nights ago when I photographed the same region,” says Teodorescu, who offers an Oct. 19th image for comparison. “Now, I have seen it two nights in a row (Oct. 22nd and 23rd), and other observers have seen it, too.”

Tharsis is a vast volcanic plateau on Mars extending over 30 million square kilometers that dominates the western hemisphere of the Red Planet.

The region is home to the largest volcanoes in the Solar System, including the three enormous shield volcanoes Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Ascraeus Mons, which are collectively known as the Tharsis Montes.

Teodorescu admits he doesn’t know what he has photographed and he thinks “it must be some kind of cloud or streamer of dust.”

Credit: Teodorescu of Magurele – Space Weather

As Space Weather reports, “to investigate further, Teodorescu projected the streak down onto a Mars Orbiter image of the region.

“The streak is about 600 km long,” Teodorescu says. “It is close to Arsia Mons, but not a perfect match. Perhaps it is a shadow of the volcano’s ice cloud projected down onto lower Tharsis clouds.”

Astronomers have previously spotted a series of dark dunes on Mars that resemble the dots and dashes of Morse’s code, but they cannot be compared to this black streak.

The dark streak photographed by Teodorescu is really interesting and it would be interesting to know if it’s still visible in a day or two.

Written by Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com Staff Writer