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Possible Active Glacier Found On Mars

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed Dec 19, 2007 05:17 PM
from the dr-neukum-forever dept.
Space Mars
FireFury03 writes "The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft has spotted an icy feature which appears to be a young active glacier. Dr Gerhard Neukum, chief scientist on the spacecraft's High Resolution Stereo Camera said 'We have not yet been able to see the spectral signature of water. But we will fly over it in the coming months and take measurements. On the glacial ridges we can see white tips, which can only be freshly exposed ice'. Estimates place the glacier at 10,000 — 100,000 years old."
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Submission: Active glacier found on Mars by FireFury03 (653718)
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  • Possible landing zone for a Mars Mission? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dr_Banzai (111657) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @05:19PM (#21757450) Homepage
    This might be a good place to land a Mars mission because you could use the ice to create oxygen, water, fuel etc.

  • Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)

    by scubamage (727538) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @05:21PM (#21757472)
    The doctor in the article is named Dr. Neukem. If his first name is Duke, I would not want to be the one to contest his theory.

    • Re:Sweet! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Fx.Dr (915071) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @05:25PM (#21757516)
      Why is that? It's not like he'd ever find you. Worst case scenario is that every six years he'd pop his head up to remind you that he's still around.

    • Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)

      by AJWM (19027) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @06:45PM (#21758582) Homepage
      You misunderstand (or somebody did).

      It's not Duke Neukem, it's Doc Neukem.

    • "This is unique, and there are probably more," said Dr Neukum.

      If this was a line in a movie, no audience would ever buy it unless it was untitled "Ride My Red Rocket" and starred Mike Meyers as the mission leader, and the evil Dr Neukum.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by UncleTogie (1004853) *

        Sorry, his full name is; Dr Gerhard Neukum

        Actually, his name is Gerhard Neukum. His title is Dr...

        I'm a little mistrustful of someone who INSISTS that "white tips ... can only be freshly exposed ice"... There could be a number of other explanations, and I'd hope the team would consider those as well.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I'm a little mistrustful of someone who INSISTS that "white tips ... can only be freshly exposed ice"...

          Agreed 100%. Perhaps now my "Mars is made of meringue" hypothesis will finally be taken seriously!
        • I'm a little mistrustful of someone who INSISTS that "white tips ... can only be freshly exposed ice"... There could be a number of other explanations, and I'd hope the team would consider those as well.

          Given the amount of dut that moves around in the martian atmosphere, it seems reasonable to assume that white tips means new.

          However, after flying over America for the first time a couple of years ago (only my second time in an airplane in forty years), I was amazed at how the ground looked either red or bro
        • True it could just be that that spot on Mars is where the aliens keep all their cocaine. :)

  • Here comes the Martian penguin movie... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gumbo (88087) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @05:25PM (#21757520) Homepage
    If you thought Hollywood was out of penguin movie fuel (after March, Happy Feet, and the other animated one that I can't remember the name of), this is just the thing they've been waiting for. Cute green Martian penguins dancing around on an iceberg. Fun for everybody!
  • We've known there was ice on Mars for a century or more. It is visible from Earth through any reasonably good telescope. You know, those white things at the poles?

    Sure, in winter they get bigger from frozen out CO2, but there's a year-round permanent cap of water ice. Glaciers, permafrost, pingoes and other signs of ice should not be a surprise. Okay, a glacier on the Martian equator might be a surprise, except perhaps on one of the Tharsis Bulge volcanoes or Nix Olympica (er, Olympus Mons to you young

    • Re:Not a surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MightyMartian (840721) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @05:29PM (#21757570) Journal
      I think the pleasure out of this finding is yet more evidence that Mars is an *active* planet. We've known for over a century about Martian seasons, for quite some time about the vast dust storms, and recently there have been some tanatalizing hints of ongoing vulcanism, and now an active glacier. For a glacier to be active, it means there has to be some sort of hydrological cycle to replenish the ice.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wizardforce (1005805)

      Okay, a glacier on the Martian equator might be a surprise, except perhaps on one of the Tharsis Bulge volcanoes or Nix Olympica (er, Olympus Mons to you young whippersnappers; now get off my lawn).

      its location is at 47.5N, 28.4E so yes, very odd indeed.

      Yet people seem to be surprised every time there's the merest hint, or act like it's of some cosmic significance. Sheesh.

      yeah, a large percentage of the solar system's material consists of frozen water, no surprise by that account that water exists on Mars,

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by AJWM (19027)
        Well, 47.5 N is hardly equatorial, but it is further south (by about 8 degrees) than the typical maximum winter extent of the north polar cap, so I'll grant you "odd" but perhaps not "very odd". (We have equatorial glaciers here on Earth at sufficient altitude, although they're disappearing rapidly.)

        I wouldn't be surprised if significant traces of water (ice) are found all over Vastitas Borealis; if it was once a sea bottom (and it bears characteristics of such) there could be a lot left just under the sur

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Chris Burke (6130)
      Yet people seem to be surprised every time there's the merest hint, or act like it's of some cosmic significance. Sheesh.

      Well maybe this is just me, but I tend to be surprised or excited whenever the actual scientists involved are surprised or excited. Seems like they are the ones who would be best equipped to know what the significance is.

      I'm pretty sure they are already aware of the Martian ice caps, so maybe there's something more significant to this then? Naw, you're right, it's better to use hindsigh
      • Scientists act surprised and excited at almost any discovery, partly because it either supports or disagrees with current theory, which in a relatively new field like planetology is interesting either way. But - and forgive me for being cynical - they also do it to encourage those who fund them to keep on funding them. If they'd said "ho hum, we expected that", how do you think the purse-string holders would react the next time the scientists went asking for money?

        Yeah, it's an interesting find in the way
        • Be cynical all you want. I doubt you know enough about planetary climatology to have said whether or not young, active glaciers were probable based solely on the existence of ancient, permanent ice caps. But now that it has been discovered, it's easy for the cynical to say "Oh of course you would expect to find that, we already knew there was ice, duh". When there's simply more to the issue than that.

          Nobody said that this should shake the very foundations of planetology, or anything even close to that.
          • The "young" is yet to be demonstrated. (For that matter, so is whether or not this is really ice, but that seems a reasonable bet.) As for "active" -- if it's a glacier, it flows under the force of gravity, and either advances or (depending on temperature) the leading edge retreats; of course it's active.

            TFA makes a big deal out of the exposed white areas, claiming that ice sublimates quickly on Mars. Well, some places it does, some places it doesn't. If it's exposed on the ridge peaks, that could be b

      • Re:Not a surprise. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by idontgno (624372) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @05:47PM (#21757794) Journal

        Besides that, I simply cannot wait for the ID explanation of life on Mars.

        Leaving aside the (in my opinion) intellectual dishonesty of ID, a cool (and admittedly fictional) creationist take on the idea of life on Mars: Out of the Silent Planet [slashdot.org] by C. S. Lewis.

        Nothing I'm aware of in creationist canon explicitly excludes the idea of life elsewhere in this universe. It's just not mentioned. Only the most closed-minded would insist "only the things described in $HOLYBOOK happened, nothing else!".

        • Only the most closed-minded would insist "only the things described in $HOLYBOOK happened, nothing else!".
          Unfortunately that describes far too many these days. Even if you were to argue that's a small proportion of active Christians in the US, it's enough to affect attempts to teach science. Look at all the controversies over teaching ID in public schools: do you really think these schoolboard members are terribly open-minded?

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by sumdumass (711423)
            Your completely off the mark here. The problem isn't people thinking that "if it isn't in the good book it doesn't exist". It isn't even close to that.

            The problem with teaching science isn't anything to do with the bible. It is with how the science is being taught. It is being done in a way that excludes anything else. It is in effect calling religions wrong and to some extent, it (the people teaching it) specifically mentioned it being wrong. While that may be a true statement in your take on things, there
        • I would think the ID explanation of life on Mars would most likely be the same as most scientists: "There isn't any."
          Even if there was, nothing in the Bible says there is no life anywhere else. Jesus once said something to the affect of "I have other sheep which are not of this fold." As Jesus was a carpenter, I think we are not meant to take that literally. Most would say that refers to the Gentiles. But who knows for sure?

  • Missing (Score:4, Funny)

    by Etrias (1121031) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @05:35PM (#21757666)
    Oh good! Glaciers on Mars. Nice for them to turn up because we're starting to miss a few down here.
  • This is cool. If any Martians ever stuck their tongue on it they should still be there!

  • Mars Ice "Premium" Bottled Water? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zymergy (803632) * on Wednesday December 19 2007, @06:07PM (#21758022)
    Executive: "How can we get ahold of some of that Mars glacial ice? We could make a killing selling it to the bottled water crowd!"

    R&D: "We could make it a dilute 'blend' with filtered municipal tap water and disclose (in small print) that it is 'filtered for your purity'."

    Marketing: "The bottle cost should be just under $0.05 each (with printing) and we could put on its side in BOLD TYPE: 'Contains REAL Mars Water' and actual unit cost could be $1000 each. Then we could spread a rumor that it has aphrodisiac properties, it worked for the rhinoceros horn market!"...

    NASA Administration Plebe to NASA Director: "Sir, I think I have found a new way to raise REAL corporate money for our manned Mars missions..."

    • Executive: "How can we get ahold of some of that Mars glacial ice? We could make a killing selling it to the bottled water crowd!"

      R&D: "We could make it a dilute 'blend' with filtered municipal tap water and disclose (in small print) that it is 'filtered for your purity'."
      In small print?! You clearly know nothing of consumers, it's not "filtered" or "diluted", it's homoeopathy!!

    • Three words:
      Dehydrated Martian Ice

      Tagline:
      Just add water, then freeze
  • After all, no telling what global warming will do to this thing.
  • so we can melt it

    i am not happy with just denuding mt kilimanjaro of glaciers and melting greenland

    we must do better than this

    global warming? this is the mark of an inferior life form

    solar system warming or darest i dream galactic warming, that should be the goal of mankind!

    • Re:we must go to mars (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rucs_hack (784150) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @06:30PM (#21758360)
      Actually, perverse though it sounds, global warming is exactly what we have to do on Mars if its ever to be habitable without assisted environments (posh way of saying biodome..) in a thousand yars or so. All that subsurface ice needs to be melted to bring the oceans back and build a decent atmosphere, one better at deflecting solar radiation.

      Without it we'd have to wait tens of thousands of years, or more, while specially engineered plant life (very basic plant life) and such worked its slow magic on the atmosphere. With a bit of global warming technology (TM) we can shorten the time considerably. If oceans were brought back the process would be much faster.

      The question is how can it be acheived in a way that can be managed, so it doesn't spin out of control. Personally, since I won't be alive in either case, a thing I have in common with everyone reading this, I'd go for the slower option, or even go for the option of spending a few hundred years seeing if there were any remnant native organisms that could be helped back into activity and do the job for us.

      That there are active glaciers is fascinating though. What a shame that almost all of the current environment of mars would need to be destroyed or irreversibly altered in order to host our species. It doesn't bode well for our entry into the interstellar club. How ironic if the destructive aliens we worry about so much in fiction turn out to be us.

      • Actually, perverse though it sounds, global warming is exactly what we have to do on Mars if its ever to be habitable without assisted environments (posh way of saying biodome..) in a thousand yars or so. All that subsurface ice needs to be melted to bring the oceans back and build a decent atmosphere, one better at deflecting solar radiation.

        It's going to take more than that. Even if you managed, somehow, to get a dense atmosphere on Mars (which is a must if you don't want the water to simply boil on the

      • Create a giant yellow 'umbrella' between the sun and mars.
        It would be concave on the mars side and larger then mars. So it would focus more light and heat onto mars. Thus warming it.
        It could also deflect much of the suns bombardment of radiation onto the planet.

  • More Martian Glacier Info (Score:3, Informative)

    by L3WKW4RM (228924) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @06:31PM (#21758372) Homepage

    More info and photos on the Martian rock-ice glaciers of Deuteronilus Mensae [asu.edu].

    Now that we've got glaciers and lava tubes [nasa.gov], I'm packing up my crampons and caving gear for a Martian vacation!

  • Estimate? (Score:3)

    by ScrewMaster (602015) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @07:08PM (#21758790)
    Estimates place the glacier at 10,000 -- 100,000 years old.

    They really meant "wild-assed guess", but it sounds more scientific to call it an estimate.
    • Estimates place the glacier at 10,000 -- 100,000 years old.
      What's an order of magnitude among friends?
  • Martian scientists believe that their neighboring planet, known as 'Irth' may have had glaciers and polar ice caps in its recent past. These ara believed to have disappeared during the recent geological era known as SUV.
    • Martian scientists believe that their neighboring planet, known as 'Irth' may have had glaciers and polar ice caps in its recent past. These ara believed to have disappeared during the recent geological era known as SUV.

      Some Martian scientists disagree. They believe the proper interpretation of the inhabitants own description of their final days to be the symbols "GW". There are two camps, one of which considers this "GW" to represent the phrase "Global Warming", which would tend to agree with the physic
  • Or something else.

    But they are probably right, it was probably ice from the beverage the giant face dropped when he heard the dismaying news that NASA "proved" he was just a natural rock formation.

  • Not News. (Score:3, Funny)

    by notnAP (846325) on Wednesday December 19 2007, @10:50PM (#21760784)

    Possible Active Interplanetary Missile Complex Found On Mars


    Now that's news.

    • The same odds the a man actually named "McCool" would die in a spaceship accident.

      If I tried to use that name in a game, I would have been laughed at.

    • >With Mar's distance

      This is taking the apostrophe-s-itis a little too far.

      Why hot ga's and melt's too?

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