Mars Express Images Show Dark Volcanic Ash Spreading Across Utopia Planitia

Overview

• New high‑resolution images from ESA’s Mars Express show a dark blanket now covering more ground than in NASA’s 1976 Viking photos of the same Utopia Planitia region.
• Mission scientists interpret the dark layer as volcanic ash rich in mafic minerals such as olivine and pyroxene, not as evidence of current eruptions.
• Researchers are evaluating two causes for the broader dark area, either wind moving fine volcanic particles or the stripping of lighter dust that reveals older dark deposits.
• Within the dark field sits a roughly 15‑kilometer‑wide crater ringed by pale ejecta, with squiggly floor patterns that mark slow movement of icy material.
• HRSC’s long‑running mapping, developed and operated by DLR with image products created with Freie Universität Berlin, enables the decadal comparison over ice‑rich, fracture‑cut Utopia Planitia.