Massive Martian Glaciers Found 314
Kozar_The_Malignant writes "Scientific American is reporting that 'data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter point to vast glaciers buried beneath thin layers of crustal debris.' Data from the surface-penetrating radar on MRO revealed that two well-known mid-latitude features are composed of solid water ice. One is about three times the size of the City of Los Angeles. This certainly makes the idea of establishing a station on Mars far more plausible."
SciAm sucks (Score:5, Informative)
(American Scientist is much better)
The original NASA press release is at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro-20081120.html [nasa.gov]
Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
"Ice" and "metal" have different meanings in planetary science than regular old chemistry. "Ice" can refer to any solid "volatile" substance (water, ammonia, methane, hydrogen...) and "metal" (IIRC) refers to other solids (carbon, silicon, iron...). Since lots of carbon dioxide ice has been found on mars in the past, it's worth making the distinction.
Also, when you're talking about the makeup of stars, "metal" refers to everything other than hydrogen or helium.
IANA astronomer, planetary geologist, etc.
Re:Fossil water (Score:4, Informative)
Our atmosphere is protected by the Earth's magnetic field because it deflects the ionized particles which make up the Sun's powerful solar wind. Earth's magnetic field is produced by the rotation of its liquid outer core. Mars by contrast has a completely solid core and no magnetic field. Combined with its smaller size and lower gravity (about a third of the Earth's gravity) this lack of a magnetic field is the reason why Mars' atmosphere eroded away.
The reason for the "failed planet" that produced the asteroid belt is probably Jupiter. Jupiter's gravity is strong enough to pull material out of asteroid belt on a regular basis. If you combined all of the material in the asteroid belt, the resulting "planet" would be less massive than Mercury.
Re:Phoenix mission a waste? (Score:3, Informative)
Phoenix was designed to dig a few inches into the ground. The glaciers in the linked article are probably buried a lot deeper. It actually would be more realistic to send Bruce Willis and his oil drillers to Mars to dig for ice than it was to send them to the asteroid in that movie....
MRO videos (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Time to move... (Score:3, Informative)
Oh? Don't I recall correctly that syphilis came back to Europe after the explorers "fraternized" with the local women?