Dozens of mysteriously dense blobs — including one surprisingly pooch-shaped structure — are lurking beneath an ancient seabed surrounding Mars' north pole, a new "gravity map" of the Red Planet reveals. The first-of-its-kind atlas also confirms a recent finding about Mars' tallest mountain that could help reveal secrets about the planet's volcanic past and present.
In a new study, researchers created the first true global density map of Mars by combining data about the planet's crust from NASA's InSight lander with records of fluctuations in the orbits of satellites, such as NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the European Space Agency's Mars Express, as they were pulled out of place by hidden gravitational anomalies.
