Posted on 10/26/2018 1:41:46 PM PDT by ETL
Although Mars' atmosphere is comprised of vastly different elements than Earth's and is approximately 100 times less dense than our own, the planet does have clouds. But one strange, curious cloud near a massive volcano is puzzling onlookers..."
The cloud, described as "curious" by the European Space Agency, was first spotted over the Arsia Mons volcano on the planet on Sept. 13 by the Mars Express spacecraft. The ESA does not believe it is a volcanic cloud since no volcano has been active on the planet in about 50 years, but rather they believe it is a water ice cloud.
"In spite of its location, this atmospheric feature is not linked to volcanic activity but is rather a water ice cloud driven by the influence of the volcano’s leeward slope on the air flow – something that scientists call an orographic or lee cloud – and a regular phenomenon in this region," the ESA said in a statement on its website.
The space agency noted that the cloud has grown and changed shape throughout the day. It grows "in length during local morning downwind of the volcano, almost parallel to the equator, and reaching such an impressive size that could make it visible even to telescopes on Earth," the ESA added.
Mars' winter solstice on its northern hemisphere occurred on Oct. 16 and the ESA noted that a "seasonally recurrent water ice cloud," like the aforementioned cloud, has formed along the southwestern flank of the volcano in the past. The Mars Express craft and others have actually observed the cloud in 2009, 2012 and 2015, the ESA said.
Despite the proclamation from the ESA, that has not stopped conspiracy theorists on the internet proclaiming it could be from the volcano or something else.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
On the topic of Mars ... He fits right in with "Ancient Aliens".
That puts him above Algore, whose only expertise seems to be political corruption.
Martian off-road race going on?
Belly Button Lint
Major constituents of the dry1 atmosphere of Mars:
95.9% carbon dioxide (CO2);
2% Argon (Ar);
1.9% Nitrogen (N2);
0.14% Oxygen (O2).
Major constituents of the dry atmosphere of Earth:
.04% carbon dioxide (CO2);
0.93% Argon (Ar);
78.08% Nitrogen (N2);
20.95% Oxygen (O2).
Doesn't sound like "vastly different elements" to me. Author doesn't know what he is talking about.
1. "Dry" atmosphere excludes highly variable water vapor constituent.
“Although Mars’ atmosphere is comprised of vastly different elements than Earth’s”
Huh? Different composition, maybe. Different percentages. But “vastly different elements”? Do they have their very own Martian Periodic Table of the Elements?
It sprung a leak.
It is just military style smoke screen to cover construction projects.
Does Uranus emit smelly gases?
It does seem as if some science writers don't know all that much about science themselves, and so sometimes misinterpret what the scientists and/or their spokespeople tell them.
Huh? Different composition, maybe. Different percentages. But “vastly different elements”? Do they have their very own Martian Periodic Table of the Elements?
Yes, should have been vastly different percentages or proportions.
Smoke grenade. Those things are vicious.
Around the same time that the dinosaurs became extinct on Earth, a volcano on Mars went dormant, NASA researchers have learned.
Arsia Mons is the southernmost volcano in a group of three massive Martian volcanoes known collectively as Tharsis Montes. Until now, the volcano's history has remained a mystery. But thanks to a new computer model, scientists were finally able to figure out when Arsia Mons stopped spewing out lava.
According to the model, volcanic activity at Arsia Mons came to a halt about 50 million years ago. Around that same time, Earth experienced the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, which wiped out three-quarters of its animal and plant species, including the dinosaurs.
Jacob Richardson, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and co-author of the new study, presented the findings today (March 20) at the 48th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, The Woodlands, Texas.
"We estimate that the peak activity for the volcanic field at the summit of Arsia Mons probably occurred approximately 150 million years ago — the late Jurassic period on Earth — and then died out around the same time as Earth’s dinosaurs," Richardson said in a statement. "It’s possible, though, that the last volcanic vent or two might have been active in the past 50 million years, which is very recent in geological terms."
Richardson and his team identified 29 volcanic vents on Arsia Mons. These vents are located inside the caldera — the crater-shaped depression on top of the volcano. Calderas form when volcanoes collapse under their own weight as lava accumulates on top. The caldera on Arsia Mons, which is big enough to hold at least all the water in Lake Huron, measures 69 miles (110 kilometers) across.
To figure out when the volcano was last active, Richardson and his team used high-resolution images from Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to map lava flows around the 29 vents. Tallying craters around the volcano helped them to determine how long the lava flows had been there. Combining this data, the researchers determined that the most recent volcanic activity occurred 10 to 90 million years ago. The oldest lava flows are about 200 million years old.
"Think of it like a slow, leaky faucet of magma," Richardson said. "Arsia Mons was creating about one volcanic vent every 1 to 3 million years at the peak, compared to one every 10,000 years or so in similar regions on Earth."
The results of the study were published in January in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
https://www.space.com/36138-mars-volcano-died-with-dinosaurs.html
Gene Hunt’s Cortina has a real oil control problem.
Neosapiens.
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