Posted on 03/15/2007 1:01:58 PM PDT by Pharmboy
A spacecraft orbiting Mars has scanned huge deposits of water ice at its south pole so plentiful they would blanket the planet in 36 feet of water if they were liquid, scientists said on Thursday.
The scientists used a joint NASA-Italian Space Agency radar instrument on the European Space Agency Mars Express spacecraft to gauge the thickness and volume of ice deposits at the Martian south pole covering an area larger than Texas.
The deposits, up to 2.3 miles thick, are under a polar cap of white frozen carbon dioxide and water, and appear to be composed of at least 90 percent frozen water, with dust mixed in, according to findings published in the journal Science.
Scientists have known that water exists in frozen form at the Martian poles, but this research produced the most accurate measurements of just how much there is.
They are eager to learn about the history of water on Mars because water is fundamental to the question of whether the planet has ever harbored microbial or some other life. Liquid water is a necessity for life as we know it.
Characteristics like channels on the Martian surface strongly suggest the planet once was very wet, a contrast to its present arid, dusty condition.
Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who led the study, said the same techniques are being used to examine similar ice deposits at the Martian north pole.
Radar observations made in late 2005 and early 2006 provided the data on the south pole, and similar observations were taken of the north pole in the past several months, Plaut said.
Plaut, part of an international team of two dozen scientists, said a preliminary look at this data indicated the ice deposits in at the north pole are comparable to those at the south pole.
SEARCH FOR LIFE
"Life as we know it requires water and, in fact, at least transient liquid water for cells to survive and reproduce. So if we are expecting to find existing life on Mars we need to go to a location where water is available," Plaut said.
"So the polar regions are naturally a target because we certainly know that there's plenty of H2O there."
Some of the new information even hints at the possible existence of a thin layer of liquid water at the base of the deposits.
But while images taken by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft made public in December suggested the presence of a small amount of liquid water on the surface, researchers are baffled about the fate of most of the water. The polar deposits contain most of the known water on Mars.
Plaut said the amount of water in the Martian past may have been the equivalent of a global layer hundreds of meters deep, while the polar deposits represent a layer of perhaps tens of meters.
"We have this continuing question facing us in studies of Mars, which is: where did all the water go?" Plaut said.
"Even if you took the water in these two (polar) ice caps and added it all up, it's still not nearly enough to do all of the work that we've seen that the water has done across the surface of Mars in its history."
Plaut said it appears perhaps 10 percent of the water that once existed on Mars is now trapped in these polar deposits. Other water may exist below the planet's surface or perhaps some was lost into space through the atmosphere, Plaut said.
Mars needs global warming and it needs it now.
fascinating. bump for later reading.
I suspect most of the water went away when Mars was struck by the large rock that ripped off half its crust.
This was highly suspected (other people might type "known") for some time. There is water ice and dry (carbon dioxide) ice on Mars' polar regions. Also, water ice is suspected of being under the ground.
I'm kind of curious if anyone knows why the moisture would migrate to the polar regions of the planet.
ping.
Terraform it. Make it habitable. All us conservatives move there.
If the liberals want to "save the Earth" then let 'em have it.
We'll take Mars!
Mars needs global warming and it needs it now.
maybe it needed more CO 2 before it froze? /s (I think, LOL)
Way ahead of you. The next Mars Rover will be a Hummer.
IT'S GLOBAL WARMING!!!!! EVERYBODY RUN!
Hehehe
I wonder just how long it's been since that ice was liquid water.
Just imagine if astronomer's early reports (from over a hundred years ago) of canals and seas on mars were rooted in some form of reality!
This makes certain what many science-fiction writers have thought about. Mars is the best planet in our system for human colonization. I'm not saying that it would be easy, but at least there is water there.
When did this happen? I know of the earth impact that created the moon, but am unfamiliar with such a Mars event.
Water has been discovered on Mars about every month for the past three years. The problem is that NASA is on the search for life yet never sends life-finding experiments anymore since Viking. It's like the search for OBL. Once they find life, it will be over for NASA.
I'm assuming it ended up where it's coldest and got locked into solid form.
Not hard to do, just need a big mylar sheet. That will have a two-fold effect. First it will release CO2 sequestered in the regolith, and it will begin to melt the ice. I forget the exact numbers, but very shortly we begin to get very close to 1/3 of an atmosphere of pressure, and at the bottom of the largest valleys, we're approaching shirt-sleeve environment (minus breathing equipment).
Even more importantly, this should hasten the efforts for a manned mission. Having water there means that we DON'T need to bring hydrogen to create methane for propellant, or oxygen. That means that we can launch a mission TODAY with current technology. Build Orion, and get it on top of an Atlas V of Delta IV Heavy.
They have a ridiculous amount of excess production capacity in Alabama. They can build 40 common booster cores per year. That's 10 Delta IV heavies, enough to launch a manned mission to Mars. 10 DIV's are approximately 250 tonnes to LEO. Then there are 10 DIV regulars to launch another 100 tonnes to LEO.
Ugh...why aren't we funding NASA more?
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