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Mars Earth

Martian Canyons May Have Been Carved By Wind 39

sciencehabit writes Ancient canyons scar the surface of Mars, a relic from a time billions of years ago when rivers flowed on its surface. But water may not be the only factor that shaped these canyons—the wind whipping through them could be just as important, according to a new study of river canyons on Earth. Scientists studying chasms in the Andes mountains in northeast Chile have found that wind carves some canyons 10 times faster than water. The discovery may be significant for understanding how much water flowed on the surface of ancient Mars.
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Martian Canyons May Have Been Carved By Wind

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  • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
    While here on Earth with a good 1 atmosphere of pressure, wind might be 10 times faster than water. Now how does that scale to Mars' 0.6% atmospheric pressure?
    • by rwven ( 663186 )

      It probably compares pretty well when you consider the speed at which water flows on mars... :-P

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      ...Mars' 0.6% atmospheric pressure

      The flip side is that gravity is about 1/3 Earth's there. That means it's easier for thin winds to move particles.

    • Earth doesn't have the huge global dust storms that Mars gets. But at any rate, 4 billion years ago Mars had a much thicker atmosphere.

  • by o_ferguson ( 836655 ) on Monday March 09, 2015 @03:34PM (#49218595)
    It's pretty obvious that Mars was primarily carved by arc discharge.
    • I'm pretty sure naturally occurring lasing is still on the table, and I find that highly likely compared to several of the options such as arc discharge, giant space worms, and a young, eccentric billionaire who traveled there to engage in some planetary bondage play, the scars of which haven't yet healed.

  • Carved by wind? What does that even mean?

    Ohhh, wind. Hard to tell the difference when it's written down.

    It also ruins any attempt at making a joke about it. See above.

  • Wind, water, lava flows.... Another on first consideration implausible one is electric discharge. But some pretty good points [youtube.com] can be made about these matching the observations. I have never heard the proponents of that model provide a convincing and comprehensive explanation of what gets and keeps the discharge going, though.
  • that water could flow on it?

    And what accounts for the difference in surface temperature, given that Mars's orbit didn't shift by that much?

    • that water could flow on it?

      And what accounts for the difference in surface temperature, given that Mars's orbit didn't shift by that much?

      Loss of most of its former atmosphere.

  • ianap but fluid dynamics is actually really interesting and relevant

    everything behaves according to fluid dynamics principles...well...that's reductive but it's true for so many things including planets, light waves and typewriters

    was it wind or water?

    was it liquid water or water vapor?

    see how the distinctions start to change?

    this is about the recent "Mars had a huge ocean" news story...it was an easy pick for news editors, it's fun and has a cool graphic of an artists's conception of Mars with a huge ocean

  • I'm not saying it's aliens, but it's aliens.

  • While it won't account for all canyons, I suspect there could be Mars-specific mechanisms, such as layers of dust/ice/dry ice that build up over the ages and metamorph under pressure into stratified rock. Then something like a meteor strike disrupts the surface, exposing the strata at an edge, allowing the ice to sublimate, weakening the rock structure and allowing accelerated crumbling of the rockface, exposing more icy strata to the same forces of decay - including wind that blows away some of the dust r

  • Somehow the first time I read this it came out Martion crayons not canyons. Confused the hell out of me.

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