When Mars Tipped Over
How a bulge of volcanoes shaped the Red Planet.
By Eric Betz
Oct 6, 2016 5:00 AMNov 12, 2019 6:39 AM
New research indicates that the load of Mars’ Tharsis bulge caused the planet’s outer layers to rotate. As a result, the planet’s axis reoriented — a phenomenon called true polar wander (TPW) — and tipped about 20 degrees, as this image shows. (Warmer colors denote higher elevations.) | Sylvain Boulet et al./Macmillan Publishers ltd/Nature/Vol 531, March 17, 2016
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