The Libya Montes are a highland terrain on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

up-lifted by the giant impact that created the

Isidis basin Isidis Planitia is a plain located within a giant impact basin on Mars, located partly in the Syrtis Major quadrangle and partly in the Amenthes quadrangle. At approximately in diameter, it is the third-largest obvious impact structure on the ...

to the north. During 1999, this region became one of the top two that were being considered for the canceled Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander. The Isidis basin is very ancient. Thus, the Libya Montes that form the southern Isidis basin rim contain some of the oldest rocks available at the Martian surface, and a landing in this region might potentially provide information about conditions on early Mars. After they formed by the Isidis impact, the Libya Montes were subsequently modified by a large variety of processes, including fluvial activity, wind erosion and impact cratering. In particular, precipitation induced surface runoff and groundwater seepage resulted in the formation of fluvial landforms, i.e., dense valley networks,Catalog Page for PIA02396
/ref> broad and elongated valleys, delta deposits, alluvial fans, open-basin paleolakes and coastlines. Crater size - frequency distribution measurements ("crater counting") revealed that the majority of valleys were formed early in Martian history (more than 3.7 billion years ago, Late Noachian). However, recent studies show that the formation of valleys continued throughout the Middle Ages of Mars (Hesperian period) and stopped 3.1 billion years ago in the Late Hesperian. File:Libya Montes - THEMIS image.JPG, Libya Montes in

Iapygia quadrangle The Iapygia quadrangle (geography), quadrangle is one of a series of list of quadrangles on Mars, 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Iapygia quadrangle is also referred ...

with valley networks, as seen by

THEMIS In Greek mythology and religion, Themis (; grc, Θέμις, Themis, justice, law, custom) is one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia and Uranus, and the second wife of Zeus. She is the goddess and personification of justice, divine order, fai ...

Libya Montes "face"

Libya Montes has a face-like formation that appears even when viewed at different angles and with different sun angles. It can be found in the

Mars Global Surveyor ''Mars Global Surveyor'' (MGS) was an American robotic space probe developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. MGS was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through t ...

, MOC narrow-angle image M02-03051, locate
here (MSSS)
o

Crop
. Also in HiRISE imag
ESP 018368 1830non-map projected
and ESP 018223 1830a stereo pair that allows 3D terrain data to be generated. Like the more famous

Face on Mars Cydonia (, ) is a region on the planet Mars that has attracted both scientific and popular interest. The name originally referred to the albedo feature (distinctively coloured area) that was visible from earthbound telescopes. The area borders ...

, it is an example of

pareidolia Pareidolia (; ) is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none. Common examples are perceived images of animals, ...

References

External links

"Elephant" face
Mountains on Mars Iapygia quadrangle {{Mars-stub