Professor of Mathematics
Paata Ivanisvili
Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine
← Possible new impact sites on Mars
Candidate 30: Southern Arabia Terra, east of Schiaparelli crater
Strong · roughly 90%
What changed. A compact, very dark spot about 55 by 65 m appeared east of Schiaparelli crater between September 2010 and May 2023. It is still there in February 2025.
Why it may be a new impact. A September 2010 image under the same sun shows nothing there and would have shown it clearly. The same sun rules out a shadow and the ground is level, so it is not a slope streak; a compact, very dark spot unchanged for 21 months is the typical mark of a small impact.
- Location
- 0.692° S, 26.689° E
- Absent
- 6 September 2010
- Present
- 1 May 2023 and 17 February 2025
- Size
- Compact, very dark spot about 55 × 65 m
- Confidence
- Strong candidate; roughly 90% that it is a new impact.
- Caveat
- Only one earlier image exists, so the window is almost 13 years long. It lies outside every footprint of the high-resolution HiRISE camera. Like every candidate here, it is unconfirmed: see the caveat.
