by Newly released images of Mars reveal a "smiley" salt deposit on the Red Planet's surface.
A related study suggests that similar deposits, which were left behind from ancient lakes, may be a good place to look for signs of former life on Mars.
The European Space Agency (ESA) shared an image of the smiley face in an Instagram post on Sept. 7.
The grinning shape, which is made up of a ring of ancient chloride salt deposits with a pair of meteor-crater eyes, was snapped by ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which has been analyzing the levels of methane and other gases in Mars' wispy atmosphere since 2016.
Normally, deposits like this would be indistinguishable from the rest of Mars' surface.
But when viewed using infrared cameras, like the ones on the ExoMars Orbiter, the salts appear pink or violet.
Source
A related study suggests that similar deposits, which were left behind from ancient lakes, may be a good place to look for signs of former life on Mars.
The European Space Agency (ESA) shared an image of the smiley face in an Instagram post on Sept. 7.
The grinning shape, which is made up of a ring of ancient chloride salt deposits with a pair of meteor-crater eyes, was snapped by ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which has been analyzing the levels of methane and other gases in Mars' wispy atmosphere since 2016.
Normally, deposits like this would be indistinguishable from the rest of Mars' surface.
But when viewed using infrared cameras, like the ones on the ExoMars Orbiter, the salts appear pink or violet.
Source
