Do the canals lead from the volcanic craters? Were they somehow formed by them?
That’s a very good question! We often see features on Mars coming out of craters or volcanoes. We’re careful not to call them canals, though, because that implies that something intelligent created them. We often see “gullies” coming out of the sides of craters that were perhaps formed by flowing water. We also see channels on the flanks of volcanoes that were most likely formed by lava flows. There are all kinds of other channels all over the surface of Mars that were either formed by flowing water, either above or below ground. We believe that most of these channels are very old (billions of years!!!) because today, liquid water can’t exist at the surface of Mars.
