Big new reservoir of water ice suspected under Mars - It once SNOWED on Mars

newscientistspace ^ | 16 March 2006 | Maggie McKee

[S0122017]

This image of Mars's south polar region and it's ice was snapped by the Viking Orbiter (Image: NASA)

[S0122017]

My favourite excerpt:

Water ice was expected in the polar caps, since they represent the largest known reservoirs of water on Mars. Estimates suggest that if they melted, they would cover the planet in a layer of water up to 33 metres deep.

Terraforming can start right away! It gives you an idea of what the possibility of (former) life on mars are, if the average climate there used to be warmer.

[S0122017]

Mars Ping

[Thrusher]

Gaping canyons and river-like channels attest to the fact that large amounts of water once flowed on Mars. But today most of that water has disappeared, and finding out where it went is one of the main aims of research on the Red Planet.

In other news, Greenpeace scientists have also published an exhaustive research study about how the use of aersol spray cans on Earth has lead to global warming on Mars. The study is unique in that it was written entirely in crayon.

[cripplecreek]

I think the biggest obstacle on Mars will be the radiation from space. That would force us underground but that may not be a bad thing.

[Chuck54]

It once SNOWED on Mars......

Now really. I'm not planning a trip next week or next year for that matter. WRGARA.

:)

[builder]

Thank God for our "man made" global warming, or this would have been our fate.[sarc]

[himno hero]

okay


everyone here keep on clapping
keep your hands high, where I can see them


so who stole the water?

[inkling]

Ski Trip!

[poindexters brother]

With the size of those mountains and the lower gravity, if we could get it snowing again what a ski resort it would make!

TM

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

so who stole the water?

Eminent domain by God.

[mirkwood]

[Nathan Zachary]

"Water ice was expected in the polar caps, since they represent the largest known reservoirs of water on Mars. Estimates suggest that if they melted, they would cover the planet in a layer of water up to 33 metres deep."

From a tiny spec of ice like that?
It's too cold on mars to ever melt ice and make flowing water, plus it will only evaporate and escape to space and break down into it's elements anyways.

[Magnum44]

Terraforming can start right away!

Well, not so sure. The suspected reason Mars has little atmosphere or water vapor is that with no magnetic field, it all sublimated off into space eons ago. Whats left is in frozen state in the ground where it is somewhat shielded from the same fate. If you start trying to create an atmosphere with water vapor from the ground source, the same thing will probably occur. We really cant do much about the lack of a Mag field on Mars.

The article states:

Gaping canyons and river-like channels attest to the fact that large amounts of water once flowed on Mars. But today most of that water has disappeared, and finding out where it went is one of the main aims of research on the Red Planet.

The writer is not well informed. The large canyons visible from Earth are not from water flow. They are there because the crust 'crumbled' as the planet cooled. Mars has no mag field because its once molten core is now cold and solid. No moving magma, no resulting currents and mag field.

So terraforming may be much more difficult that supposed. Thats my understanding of the current theories anyway. I am not an expert on this, but its related to my area.

[PreciousLiberty]

"So terraforming may be much more difficult that supposed. Thats my understanding of the current theories anyway. I am not an expert on this, but its related to my area."

It isn't so much the lack of magnetic field as it is simply the lower gravity. Both have an effect though.

My understanding has been that Martian terraforming would be "temporary" in the sense that the native atmosphere/water might only last a "few" million years. I guess the thinking is that by the time the atmosphere noticeably thinned we'd be able to bring in raw materials from just about anywhere. ;-)

Heck, within even a thousand years I'd expect mankind to have the technology to re-melt the Martian core if we felt like it.

[ppptop]

So are they saying this ice-water is actually a giant cherry slurppy

[doc30]

It's no the lack of a magnetic field that makes radiation from space dangerous nor the reason why it would be difficult to terraform Mars. A thick atmosphere protects us on Earth from space born radiation. Protection from a magnetic field depends upon polarity of the radiation. The atmosphere is far more effective. Also, if we wanted to warm up Mars, the desired temperature would dictate, via the Boltzmann distribution of temperature dependent molecular velocities, a situation where there would be a significant number of velocities greater than escape velocity for Mars, which has lower gravity than the Earth. If the Earth had the mass of Mars, we would have no atmosphere because we are much warmer. At least Mars can hold onto a tiny fraction of our atmosphere because it is so cold.

[himno hero]

duh, mhmmmmm, lets try that again

so he took it and moved it to earth?

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

so he took it and moved it to earth?

Nope.....He told me He took it to that moon around Saturn.....

:^)

[Magnum44]

Heck, within even a thousand years I'd expect mankind to have the technology to re-melt the Martian core if we felt like it.

I think there are some feats that are reserved for God. I dont think man will have the ability to do this, not before blowing himself up first, unfortunately. Besides, if the enviro whackos survive, they would never permit something like that. I am sure they would find a Martian slug worm that would be harmed.