The mystery hole was first spotted by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2011 and scientists of the space agency have now spoken out about it. The hole is almost perfectly circular, and was spotted on the slopes of Mars’ Pavonis Mons volcano.
NASA believes the opening is around 35 metres wide and the subsequent crates is roughly 20 metres deep.
The relatively large space beneath the surface means it could potentially home alien life.
Experts believe this is the case as the crater could protect any life forms from the harsh radiation of the Sun.
Earth’s atmosphere protects all life from the Sun’s radiation, but and Martians are not so lucky as the planet has no atmosphere.
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NASA scientists Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnel wrote: “The hole was discovered by chance in 2011 on images of the dusty slopes of Mars’ Pavonis Mons volcano taken by the HiRISE instrument aboard the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently circling Mars.
“Shown in representative colour, [the hole] appears to be an opening to an underground cavern.
“Why there is a circular crater surrounding this hole remains a topic of speculation, as is the full extent of the underlying cavern.
“Holes such as this are of particular interest because their interior caves are relatively protected from the harsh surface of Mars, making them relatively good candidates to contain Martian life.
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NASA has classically relied on radio waves to communicate with its machines throughout the solar system, but these waves take an average of 13 minutes to travel what can be up to 271 million mile journey to the Red Planet – depending on where Earth and Mars are in their respective orbits.
This could prove to be too long if hypothetically astronauts on Mars are in the midst of an emergency.
Lasers however provide almost instantaneous communication, and also allow for much larger data sets to be transferred.
The project is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) and the space agency described the satellite, called DSS-23, as “critical” for future Mars missions.