Seven dark patches were found on Mars near a volcano, and dubbed the seven sisters, by researchers last month.

This week, they focused in on one of them, and it appears to be a very deep hole. A hole that could most likely be able to reach a depth inside Mars that would be warm enough to have liquid water.

I can’t wait until the Mars Bats Invasion.

The geological oddity measures some 330 feet (100 meters) across and is located on an otherwise bright dusty lava plain to the northeast of Arsia Mons, one of the four giant Tharsis volcanoes on the red planet.

The hole might be the sort of place that could support life or serve as a habitat for future astronauts, researchers speculated.

A lot of fantastical space news in the past few months, I can’t believe I missed this one.

In March, NASA released images of a Saturn that show an odd hexagon formation spinning over it’s north pole. The pictures are stunning, especially the moving gif.

“This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides,” said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “We’ve never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn’s thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you’d expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is.”

This fact you often forget.

Here, let me help :

Our solar system has two new members, and one prodigal son.

The International Astronomy Union (IAU) finally decided what constitutes a planet and reaffirmed that Pluto belongs as one. In doing so, three other bodies in our system have been elevated to planetary status: Pluto’s moon Charon, a previous asteroid named Ceres, and the nicknamed “Xena” (2003 UB313).

All the new planets combined with Pluto have their own classification: Plutons. I guess they are Planet-lites. This ends the debate (for now) over whether Pluto should be known and taught as a planet. And it firmly cements Mickey’s dog.

More info from Guardian Unlimited…

edit: apparently I spoke too soon. Not only was this proposal struck down (I had thought it was already apporved but in the final stages of being initiated) but now Pluto is technically no longer a planet. it is now classified as a dwarf planet along with the 3 others mentioned above.