| Hellas Planitia | |
| Location: | Hellas quadrangle, Mars |
| Coordinates: | -42.4°N 70.5°W |
| Diameter: | 2300km (1,400miles) |
| Depth: | 7152m (23,465feet) |
Hellas Planitia is a plain located within the huge, roughly circular impact basin Hellas located in the southern hemisphere of the planet Mars.[1] Hellas is the third- or fourth-largest known impact crater in the Solar System. The basin floor is about 7152m (23,465feet) deep, 3000m (10,000feet) deeper than the Moon's South Pole-Aitken basin, and extends about 2300km (1,400miles) east to west.[2] [3] It is centered at It features the lowest point on Mars, serves as a known source of global dust storms, and may have contained lakes and glaciers.[4] Hellas Planitia spans the boundary between the Hellas quadrangle and the Noachis quadrangle.
With a diameter of about 2300km (1,400miles),[5] it is the largest unambiguous impact structure on the planet; the obscured Utopia Planitia is slightly larger (the Borealis Basin, if it proves to be an impact crater, is considerably larger). Hellas Planitia is thought to have been formed during the Late Heavy Bombardment period of the Solar System, approximately 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago, when a protoplanet or large asteroid hit the surface.[6]
The altitude difference between the rim and the bottom is over 9000m (30,000feet). Despite being deeper than the Moon's South Pole-Aitken basin, Hellas' rim peaks are significantly less prominent. This may be because large Martian impacts such as Hellas induced global hot rainfall and meltwater flows that degraded crater rims, including their own.[7] The crater's depth of 7152m (23,465feet) below the topographic datum of Mars explains the atmospheric pressure at the bottom: 12.4 mbar (1240 Pa or 0.18 psi) during winter, when the air is coldest and reaches its highest density. This is 103% higher than the pressure at the topographical datum (610 Pa, or 6.1 mbar, or 0.09 psi) and above the triple point of water, suggesting that the liquid phase could be present under certain conditions of temperature, pressure, and dissolved salt content.[8] It has been theorized that a combination of glacial action and explosive boiling may be responsible for gully features in the crater.
Some of the low elevation outflow channels extend into Hellas from the volcanic Hadriacus Mons complex to the northeast, two of which Mars Orbiter Camera images show contain gullies: Dao Vallis and Reull Vallis. These gullies are also low enough for liquid water to be transient around Martian noon, if the temperature were to rise above 0 Celsius.[9]
Hellas Planitia is antipodal to Alba Patera.[10] [11] [12] It and the somewhat smaller Isidis Planitia together are roughly antipodal to the Tharsis Bulge, with its enormous shield volcanoes, while Argyre Planitia is roughly antipodal to Elysium, the other major uplifted region of shield volcanoes on Mars. Whether the shield volcanoes were caused by antipodal impacts like that which produced Hellas, or if it is mere coincidence, is unknown.
Due to its size and its light coloring, which contrasts with the rest of the planet, Hellas Planitia was one of the first Martian features discovered from Earth by telescope. Before Giovanni Schiaparelli gave it the name Hellas (which in Greek means Greece), it was known as Lockyer Land, having been named by Richard Anthony Proctor in 1867 in honor of Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer, an English astronomer who, using a 16cm (06inches) refractor, produced "the first really truthful representation of the planet" (in the estimation of E. M. Antoniadi).[13]
Radar images by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft's SHARAD radar sounder suggest that features called lobate debris aprons in three craters in the eastern region of Hellas Planitia are actually glaciers of water ice lying buried beneath layers of dirt and rock.[14] The buried ice in these craters as measured by SHARAD is about 250m (820feet) thick on the upper crater and about 300m (1,000feet) and 450m (1,480feet) on the middle and lower levels respectively. Scientists believe that snow and ice accumulated on higher topography, flowed downhill, and is now protected from sublimation by a layer of rock debris and dust. Furrows and ridges on the surface were caused by deforming ice.
Also, the shapes of many features in Hellas Planitia and other parts of Mars are strongly suggestive of glaciers, as the surface looks as if movement has taken place.
These relatively flat-lying "cells" appear to have concentric layers or bands, similar to a honeycomb. This honeycomb terrain was first discovered in the northwestern part of Hellas.[15] The geologic process responsible for creating these features remains unresolved.[16] Some calculations indicate that this formation may have been caused by ice moving up through the ground in this region. The ice layer would have been between 100 m and 1 km thick.[17] [18] [15] When one substance moves up through another denser substance, it is called a diapir. So, it seems that large masses of ice have pushed up layers of rock into domes that were subsequently eroded. After erosion removed the top of the layered domes, circular features remained.