Posted on 05/24/2003 1:46:37 PM PDT by green team 1999
Life clues on Red Planet
By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor
Scientists may have identified what could be the best place to look for life on the Red Planet. It is the Russell Crater in Mars' southern hemisphere. 
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The Russell Crater dunefield,.............Mudflows might occur today
Observations of the region made during the local autumn and spring, when frost covers the dunes and then recedes, indicate liquid water could be present on the surface at certain times of the year.
Detailed analysis suggests this water could be mixing with soil to create frequent mudflows.
"The water we believe is there means that it could be the best place we know of so far where you could dig into the surface to look for life," researcher Dr Dennis Reiss told BBC News Online.
Freeze thaw
"There are extraordinary features in Russell Crater, features resembling terrestrial mudflows," said Dr Reiss, of the German Aerospace Centre.
He has studied high-resolution images from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in orbit around the planet. He has concluded the mudflows could be the youngest features on Mars, perhaps even being formed from time to time during the present day.
In particular, Dr Reiss measured the temperature of the surface along with its reflectivity, technically called its albedo.
These two quantities told him a lot about what is going on in the dunes.
The albedo indicates if the surface is frozen or thawed and the temperature provides clues about what types of ice and liquid are present.
When spring comes
When winter arrives at Russell Crater, water vapour and carbon dioxide condense out of Mars' thin atmosphere and frost the dunes. The albedo and temperature readings indicate that during the spring thaw, the frozen carbon dioxide sublimates - turns into a gas - leaving a thawed surface containing liquid water.
"It could be that in the first couple of centimetres of the surface there is liquid water, possibly even on the surface as well," Dr Reiss said.
"In this place, for a few hours each day, just after noon in the summer, there could be liquid water on the surface of Mars."
Faraway missions
Such a possibility is exciting for those wishing to look for life on the planet.
It is generally believed that to find life on Mars, one should try to find water.
However, none of the spacecraft set for a Mars landing this year are due to go anywhere near the Russell Crater.
The European Beagle 2 will land on the arid plain of Issidis, about 10 degrees north of the equator.
It is a site chosen to be warm enough for Beagle to work and low enough for Beagle's parachutes to allow a safe landing.
The two US rovers, also due for launch next month, will touch down near the equator, halfway around the planet from each other.
Dennis Reiss and Ralf Jaumann publish their work on Russell Crater in Geophysical Research Letters.
for information and discusion only,not for profit etc,etc.
Well said!
The other eight (or nine if you count Charon) play critical roles in supporting life on the third planet.
They are both within reach. Relatively easy reach. Achieving either would lift the terrible burden imposed on humanity when the American frontier was officially closed in 1890. It's been a battle since then, from Bellamy's Populists to OBL's alQaida. In the effort to achieve social justice, millions have died, millions and more millions. That is the truth of socialism.
Now, if we can open the frontier, outer space, that is, we can possibly return to the euphoria of Young America. Then we will have a chance to defeat the funk that has enveloped the world for over a century. Otherwise, there appears no end to what we see happening--Orange Alert from now on.
We appear to be alone. This is awesome to contemplate. It also means we have to start acting like groanups.
too many features on mars need to be check,nasa have no answers at this time, and god emperor of mars then would be underground frozen.
As large as the universe is, I would think that it may be a bit early to assume that.
This is awesome to contemplate.
I agree, as I find it more difficult to believe that we are the only existing life in the entire universe.
It also means we have to start acting like groanups.
I think it's safe to say, the chances of finding life would probably be greater.
Of course, but that is how it looks.
Ahem.....
Did you see the latest images of earth and the moon taken from the spacecraft orbiting Mars? Real neat images.
It was surprising that Dr Malin's brainchild has that capability. Perhaps one day we will set up our Dobsonians at a Martian starparty and everyone will peer through the eyepieces at earth with appropriate oohs and aahs .
May 7, 2003 | Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope's powerful new Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) have taken the deepest visible-light image ever made of the sky. The 3.5-day (84-hour) exposure captures stars as faint as 31st magnitude, according to Tom M. Brown (Space Telescope Science Institute), who headed the eight-person team that took the picture. This is a little more than 1 magnitude (2.5 times) fainter than the epochal Hubble Deep Fields, which were made with the Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. It is 6 billion times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye.
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