Mars Caves May Hold Secret to Life on Planet, Shelter Explorers

By Ryan Flinn

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Scientists have discovered a series of caves on Mars that might provide shelter to future explorers and may hold evidence of life, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The caves were probably formed when lava cooled and solidified on top of channels created during ancient volcanic eruptions, making tunnels, said a statement today from the USGS.

The formations may hold evidence of microbial life that would have been destroyed or buried on the surface of the planet, said Glen Cushing, a USGS physicist who made the discovery.

“There’s even been speculation that lava tubes could be sealed and pressured to create a habitat for long term use,” said Cushing in a telephone interview from Portland, Oregon. “That’s in the pretty far distant future, but it’s seems like a fairly reasonable prospect once we do get to that level.”

NASA is currently planning to return humans to the moon by 2020 as a step toward an eventual manned mission to Mars.

Cushing, 39, discovered the caves by studying images of grooves on the planet’s surface, some longer than 100 kilometers (62 miles), with depressions he said are skylight entrances into the tunnels.

While every planetary body likely has some sort of cave system, the eight examples found on Mars are the first to be discovered off of Earth, he said.

“It’s not surprising to find them, and we figure they almost certainly had to be there, we just hadn’t located them yet,” he said.

The depressions were detected on high-resolution images beamed back from orbiting satellites.

“By finding caves on Mars, USGS scientists have demonstrated once again that real, cutting-edge science is more exciting than the best science fiction ever written,” U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in the statement.