Mars ice could flood planet Mars ice could flood planet

BBC via Drudge ^ | Tuesday, 28 May, 2002, 15:56 GMT 16:56 UK | By Dr David Whitehouse

[RoughDobermann]

Scientists have revealed the full technical details of their discovery of vast reservoirs of ice beneath the Martian surface. So much ice has been found in the polar regions that if it were to melt it would deluge the planet.

The ice may stretch far underground to regions where it is warm, raising the possibility of warm caverns of meltwater in which scientists hesitantly speculate conditions could be suitable for life.

But they caution that we may never know until we have rock and ice samples returned to Earth by an unmanned probe for analysis.

Third time lucky

William Boynton, of the Lunar and Planetary Institute of the University of Arizona, US, is lead author on one of a trio of pioneering Mars papers published in this week's issue of Science magazine.

He regards the sensational findings of ice below the surface of Mars as third time lucky.

"Twice I was close to this," he told BBC News Online. "We detected the subsurface ice using an instrument on Mars Odyssey that was also on the Mars Observer spacecraft.

"That probe reached Mars 10 years ago, but blew up when it got there - so, we could have found [the ice] then."

Quick start

And Dr Boynton could also have found it with the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander spacecraft. It crashed into the planet's polar regions in 1999.

"It would have landed on precisely the place where we now see the ice. Polar Lander had a scoop that would have been able to dig and reach the ice so just think what we could have seen if that mission had been a success."

Fortunately, Mars Odyssey has been a resounding success.

"We started seeing the signal from the ice within a few days of starting our survey of the planet," he said.

"We saw ice where we had expected to. The signal was so strong it just knocked us over."

Lost oceans

The Gamma-Ray Spectrometer, one of several sensors on board Mars Odyssey able to find evidence of ice reserves, is only able to look about a metre (three feet) beneath the surface.

"We can see an awful lot of water there," said Dr Boynton, "but why should it stop there? It may go down 10 metres, a 100 metres or even kilometres."

The underground ice solves one of the deepest and longstanding mysteries about the Red Planet: where did the water go?

All over its surface there is evidence that in the distant past copious amounts of water flowed. We can see dried up river lakes, ancient shorelines, and vast, empty canyons.

Now, scientists know where all this water has gone - it is frozen deep underground.

"This is where the lost oceans have gone," Dr Boynton told BBC News Online.

It has been found exactly where it was predicted - Poleward of 60 degrees south, where the average temperature and soil properties would allow ice to form.

Possibility for life

If Mars were to become much warmer for some reason and the ice melted, it would drench the planet to an average depth of between half and one kilometre.

But what of life?

"Well, it's a little hard to say," speculated Dr Boynton. "If the ice is deep enough, there could be regions where it gets warm enough to melt and that would mean pockets of warm water underground.

"That would be very exciting - but we will not know for sure until we bring back a sample for analysis."

And the Mars Odyssey data has provided another ironic twist in the history of exploring the Red Planet.

In 1976, two sophisticated American spacecraft, Vikings 1 and 2, landed on the planet. They scooped up some soil and looked for life. Most scientists believe they found none. But Viking 2 may have come close.

"Our findings indicate that perhaps just a metre below Viking 2, there may have been a lot of ice. It may have got so far yet so close to finding ice on Mars," said Dr Boynton.

And the scientist who endured two failed missions and 17 years to solve one of the greatest planetary mysteries chuckles to himself.

[RightWhale]

Can somebody gather all these Mars water threads? There's a lot of commentary posts, but they are dispersed all over the FRorum.

[eFudd]

Can we make a donation to the Red Cross to help this cause?

[RightWhale]

Don't worry, we will all donate generously to this cause.

[MUDDOG]

"This is where the lost oceans have gone,"

When will they ever learn?

[RoughDobermann]

Sorry RW. I only searched this forum. My bad...

[RooRoobird14]

Al Gore: "This is just one more piece of evidence that I have been right all along about the dangers of global warming."

[RightWhale]

It's not a problem as far as I am concerned. This is just the beginning a a flood of discussion and there will be hundreds of threads eventually. It's not Elian or Chandra of course, but interest will build rather than peak as time goes on. NASA has quite a selling job ahead if they expect to get funding for a manned Mars mission. Big bucks.

[Jay W]

Water expands in volume when it goes from liquid to ice form. So, if all this underground water melted, how would it inundate Mars (one report estimated an ocean over 1000 feet deep would result)?

[Woodstock]

((Ping))

[cynicom]

I cant wait til the leftwing whackos here on Earth, form a, "Save Mars" project. Sounds implausible but they will come out of the woodwork when NASA says we are interested in Mars.

[MrNeutron1962]

"NASA has quite a selling job ahead if they expect to get funding for a manned Mars mission. Big bucks.

I'd rather fund this endevor than x42 Library.

[RightWhale]

It would. Ice expansion in the phase change from liquid is about 4 percent. Enough to crack plumbing pipes and engine blocks, but barely enough to affect the volume.

[southernnorthcarolina]

Just wait until we cause the dreaded MARTIAN WARMING by sending more and more of those little remote-control vehicles scooting around. They're much worse than SUVs driven by Soccer Moms, ya know...

But seriously, this reeks of bogusness (if that's a word). Anything to keep this multibillion dollar boondoggle alive. The "canals" have been proven to be nonexistent. More recently, some have claimed to have seen polar ice caps on Mars, but one hears nothing about these anymore, now that high-resolution photos are available. So now, this massive amount of water is "hidden." Right.

And even if there is a significant amount of liquid water in the presumably 32F+ substrata, would it not freeze immediately upon getting to the surface, either via our digging or due to a natural phenominon?

Wishful thinking is fine... until it has the effect of costing billions, courtesy of the long-suffering taxpayers.

[Jay W]

It would. Ice expansion in the phase change from liquid is about 4 percent. Enough to crack plumbing pipes and engine blocks, but barely enough to affect the volume.

But it'd still be a 4% reduction in volume from ice to water. This ice is already underground. I don't see how, if it melted, it'd inundate the planet.

On the other hand, are there a lot of abandoned engine blocks up there on Mars? ;-)

[RightWhale]

Oh, right. If it melted in place it would stay in place. It wouldn't rise up and form seas. Extracting water for a settlement would be easy, though.

[tophat9000]

Didn’t they melt the Ice Mountain in “Total Recall”

[Jay W]

Oh, right. If it melted in place it would stay in place. It wouldn't rise up and form seas. Extracting water for a settlement would be easy, though.

Some of the melt water would no doubt flow to lower elevations. I don't see how it would "rise up" to form seas. Any seas that would result would result from water flowing from higher to lower elevations.

Yes, extracting water at the Sheila Jackson Lee Spaceport & Colony would be fairly easy. I mean, when the asternauts planted the flag on Mars, they struck water, didn't they? Or was it oil? ;-)

[RoughDobermann]

Sorry all. I just realized that I I double double posted posted the the title title... ... Sigh.

[RoughDobermann]

Didn’t they melt the Ice Mountain in “Total Recall”

Yepers, sure did