"Mysterious White Crater Discovered Above Mexican Terrain"

"Mysterious White Crater Discovered Above Mexican Terrain"

On January 23rd, 2014, a mystery emerged that would take investigators from the deserts of Mars to the birth of one of the greatest civilizations on earth. There is an obvious crater in the landscape in Mexico, but what catches the attention of investigators is what's inside the crater. This white patch, which looks like ice, is unusual as it remains present all year round in Mexico. The mystery white crater is part of a cluster known as the seven luminaries, which, when viewed from above, mirrors the Ursa Major constellation.

NASA's Kasha Patel finds an extraterrestrial connection in this crater, which reminds her of the Korolev crater on Mars. The Korolev crater in the northern lowlands of Mars contains enough water ice to fill almost a billion Olympic swimming pools. The ice found elsewhere on Mars is usually mixed with frozen carbon dioxide, but the icy regions in the Korolev crater are composed of more pure water. The crater is named after rocket scientist Sergei Korolev, who helped the Soviets to land the first spacecraft on the moon during the Cold War. NASA hopes that his legacy will be key to the future human colonization of Mars, as ice is a precious commodity that can be used as rocket fuel.

The ice in the mystery white crater in Mexico does not melt during Mars's 70-degree Fahrenheit daytime temperatures due to a process called cold trapping. Cold air enters the crater and forms an insulating layer, trapping any water as water ice. This could be the same process in action in the image. However, the Earth's atmosphere is 100 times thicker than Mars, creating swirling winds that prevent cold trapping from taking place in Mexico.

According to those who live nearby, the crater once contained water that was bleach-like and killed everything it touched. To geologists, this suggests that the mystery white substance is the legacy of a catastrophically powerful volcanic event. This means that the water inside this crater is extremely alkaline and most likely sodium bicarbonate. The crater has all the classic features of a maar volcano, which is formed by phreatic eruptions known as the nuclear bombs of the natural world. Shallow magma intrudes into an area with a lot of groundwater, creating an amazing amount of energy. It vaporizes this water, creating a steam explosion. Water fills the bottom of the crater after the explosion, and sometimes volcanic gases still seep in, resulting in a highly alkaline volcanic soup. Over time, the ground around the crater dries out, concentrating the volcanic soup into a chemical sludge. As that water evaporates, it concentrates further, creating large fields of crystals that form what we see in the image.

Scientists have recently discovered that the crater's floor is covered with a cyanobacteria called spirulina. Spirulina is a very simple organism but is considered a superfood that was one of the primary food sources for the Aztecs. They harvested large quantities of it and considered it the food of the gods. Around 100,000 years after it devastated this part of Mexico, this strange white crater may have helped give rise to one of the greatest civilizations in history. It is almost like a museum of the Earth's earliest prehistory and is a fascinating place to study.

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