“The barren landscape of Mars makes the planet seem like a quiet, frozen desert where nothing has happened for billions of years except for the occasional dust storm. New research, however, suggests that the red planet has a more recent history of activity – and it could still be volcanically active. Scientists still are trying to understand the history of Mars, and NASA rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance can help uncover evidence to piece together the planet’s time line. Mars was once much wetter and warmer than it is today about 4 billion years ago. Something happened to cause the planet to lose its atmosphere and send its water beneath the surface about 3 billion years ago – but the cause remains a mystery. Scientists had believed much of the planet’s volcanic activity occurred between 3 and 4 billion years ago, along with some isolated eruptions happening about 3 million years ago. Now, orbiters circling Mars have provided imagery and data of a previously unknown area of interest. This latest information shows evidence of volcanic activity that happened within the last 50,000 years – which is fairly young, astronomically speaking. The smooth, dark area stretches for 8 miles. It’s surrounded by a 20-mile-long volcanic fissure in the Cerberus Fossae system of faults where the Martian crust has pulled apart.”

“While neither of the rovers are close enough to investigate this feature, NASA’s InSight Lander is about 1,000 miles away. The stationary craft has been studying seismic activity on Mars since it landed in November 2018. While tracking seismic activity, InSight detected two Marsquakes – like earthquakes but not caused by tectonic plates since Mars doesn’t have any – that originated from the region around Cerberus Fossae. Since tectonic activity isn’t the cause, scientists think magma could be moving deep within the planet’s interior to cause these quakes. ‘The young age of this deposit absolutely raises the possibility that there could still be volcanic activity on Mars, and it is intriguing that recent Marsquakes detected by the InSight mission are sourced from the Cerberus Fossae,’ Horvath said” – CNN.