The Analysis of Cones within the Tianwen-1 Landing Area

Abstract

On 15 May 2021, the Zhurong rover of China’s first Mars mission, Tianwen-1 (TW-1), successfully landed in southern Utopia Planitia on Mars. Various landforms were present in the landing area, and this area recorded a complex geological history. Cones are one of the typical landforms in the landing area and Utopia Planitia, and they have a great significance to the local geological processes due to the diversity of their origins. Using High-Resolution Imaging Camera (HiRIC) images collected by the TW-1 orbiter, we identified a total of 272 well-preserved circular cones in the landing area. Detailed surveys of their spatial distribution, morphological characteristics, and morphometric parameters were conducted. A preliminary analysis of the surface characteristics of these cones also provides additional information to strengthen our understanding of them. The results of the high-resolution topographic analysis show that the cone heights are in the range of 10.5–90.8 m and their basal diameters range from 178.9–1206.6 m. We compared the morphometric parameters of the cones in the landing area with terrestrial and Martian analogous features and found that our measured cones are consistent with the ranges of mud volcanoes and also a small subset of igneous origin cones. However, the result of spatial analysis is more favorable to mud volcanoes, and the lower thermal inertia of the cones in the landing area compared to their surrounding materials is also a typical characteristic of mud volcanoes. Based on current evidence and analysis, we favor interpreting the cones in the TW-1 landing area as mud volcanoes.