Professor of Mathematics

Paata Ivanisvili

Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine

Candidate 5: Cerberus plains, Elysium Planitia

Strong · roughly 70%

Two CTX close-ups of the same 800 by 800 m of the Cerberus plains, from October 2010 and November 2025. A cluster of dark blobs with dark rays, beside a narrow fracture, is present only in the 2025 image. — The same 800 × 800 m in October 2010 and November 2025, under similar sun. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

What changed. A dark spot 100 to 150 m across, with dark rays fanning out from a cluster of dark blobs, sits on the flat lava plains of Cerberus. It is identical in four images taken over two years, and absent in 2010 under the same lighting.

Why it may be a new impact. A rayed pattern around several dark centres is how a small meteoroid that broke apart just before impact typically looks from orbit.

Location: 3.723° N, 166.755° E
Absent: 10 October 2010
Present: four images from 8 October 2023 to 14 November 2025
Size: Dark spot 100 to 150 m across, with dark rays
Confidence: Strong candidate; roughly 70% that it is a new impact.
Caveat: It lies outside every footprint of the high-resolution HiRISE camera. It lies in the area of a catalogue of new impacts near the InSight lander (Bickel et al. 2025) that could not be downloaded, so it can only be inferred that the catalogue does not list it. Like every candidate here, it is unconfirmed: see the caveat.