GOODNESS GLACIOUS: A mountain [right] in the southern mid-latitudes of Mars is ringed by what now appears to be a glacial ice deposit.
Image: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
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The more we learn about Mars, it seems, the icier the Red Planet appears to be. The recently departed Phoenix lander dug up water ice and even spotted falling snow from its position in the northern polar plains. And now data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter point to vast glaciers buried beneath thin layers of crustal debris, much closer to the equator.
The findings, published today in Science, come from the spacecraft's shallow radar, or SHARAD, which is able to penetrate the surface and examine what lies beneath. In this case, SHARAD indicated that two long-visible mid-latitude features, one of which is roughly three times the size of Los Angeles, are almost completely composed of water ice. (The suspect glaciers are covered by debris that obscures them but also insulates the ice from sublimating into water vapor, much as street grit forms an opaque, protective blanket over roadside snowbanks.)
Some researchers had believed the features, which are plentiful at Martian mid-latitudes, were primarily rock, lubricated by a relatively small amount of ice, says study co-author Roger Phillips, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. But the SHARAD results suggest a generally homogeneous glacier largely lacking in internal rock fragments. "I was surprised that the ice appears so clean in the radar data and that the surface layer is so thin," says lead author Jack Holt, a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin. Victor Baker, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson who did not contribute to the study, says the evidence for water ice glaciers is compelling. "It's still an indirect measurement, but I'm totally convinced that it's ice," he says. "It's a physical measurement that you can't really interpret in any way other than the presence of ice."
Baker says that studies of Mars's surface indicate a history of glacial features in the planet's distant past. "Now what's a little bit surprising in some ways," he adds, "is that the ice is still there." Indeed, Mars's climate is not hospitable to ice formation so close to the planet's equator. (The researchers focused on the latitude band stretching from 30 to 60 degrees south latitude—on Earth, Porto Alegre, Brazil, is roughly 30 degrees south of the equator.)
"Ice should not accumulate, nor can it exist, at [the] surface at these latitudes under the current climate of Mars," Holt says. "So in addition to a protective layer, it requires regional glaciations in the past." Without a sizable moon to stabilize it, the authors point out, Mars's axial tilt is much less stable than that of Earth, causing fluctuations in its climate over time.
It's unclear how much ice is in these formations, but one of the features surveyed appears to be roughly a half mile (0.8 kilometer) thick. Phillips notes that SHARAD is not finished peering into glaciers. "We haven't surveyed the entire mid-latitudes region yet," he says. (The current study focuses on the southern hemisphere alone but notes that similar features exist north of the equator, as well.)
With more time and more sweeps of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter subsurface radar, the researchers say, they will be able to better estimate the ice's volume. But taken together, the glaciers could constitute the largest stores of water on Mars outside its polar regions.
Those stores, Baker says, would be key to potential human exploration of Mars. "Ice is the critical resource," he says, noting that solar energy—which is more abundant at lower latitudes—can be harnessed to yield hydrogen and oxygen. "Mars doesn't have much free oxygen, and people need that to breathe. And hydrogen is a great fuel for getting back from Mars."
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48 Comments
Add CommentWell that'll make terraforming easier, except for the occasional mudslide as the groundwater melts and mobilises.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow! That is very interesting! I am starting to believe more and more that there actually may be Martians out there somewhere! Intelligent? Maybe!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHa Ha Ha! LOL! That's true!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPfft, what do they teach kids in school these days? Everyone knows that WE'RE the martians. We ruined our old planet and as a last resort we explored our neighbour planets for a suitable alternative. Earth was terraformed and Mars left to "die out"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisREAD YOUR HISTORY BOOKS PEOPLE!
anth, we're all from Venus when it went super-greenhouse and the oceans boiled. Our ancestors were wafted forth on electromagnetic up-lifts into interplanetary space, blown outwards by the solar-wind and gently drifted down into Earth's primal oceans. Of course the native terrestrial life tried to defend itself, but too bad for them ;-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthere's never going to be liquid water on the surface of Mars due to the low atmospheric pressure, which is due to the low gravity of Mars. Mars can not hold on to it's atmosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven if we could thicken the atmosphere and raise the temperature to allow for liquid water on the surface of Mars it wouldn't last long and would be depleted over time.
The only solution is to engineer a 'heavy Mars' using gravitational field generators, which is beyond our current capability. This is mainly because we do not understand exactly how gravity works, so we can not produce it, or negate it, at present. Further, doing so on a planetary scale once we do understand it would be a huge undertaking.
Terraforming Mars by use of biological systems alone will not produce an 'Earth like environment'. It would merely be vandalising Mars at this time.
Matt, that gravity claim you make is total rubbish. Mars can hang on to hydrogen for billennia - long enough for humanity. Earth's own oceans will be gone in 500 million years due to mantle losses - is Earth not properly terraformed then? You've said similar things all over the Web and it's complete rot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfirst man sent should be GW. je's into drilling and his helpmeet can be that lady from Palinode Alaska.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've hardly mentioned this anywhere else. I simply can't understand your comment saying that I have.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow else do you propose to increase atmospheric pressure? I can forsee many methods to increase temperature. But in order for Mars to be suitable for human habitation without environment suits or masssive genetic manipulation the air needs to be much thicker.
Simply crash enough asteroids into Mars to increase its mass to around .8 of Earth. Since it's likely many asteroids are made of Ice, that also might help the terraforming along.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSimply crash enough asteroids into Mars to increase its mass to around .8 of Earth. Since it's likely many asteroids are made of Ice, that also might help the terraforming along.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes anybody really believe that whatever might be gained beneficially by a terraforming effort will not be swamped by the effects of man made pollution. This is one dirty species, having fouled its own nest there is little to suggest it could create clean one from scratch.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm so tired of hearing this "man as a polluting, destroying, uncontrollable virus" argument. We are young. Very young and people are constantly forgetting that. Homo sapiens are somewhere around 200,000 to 400,000 years old, depending on your measure, which is but a flash in evolutionary history. "Civilized society" as we call it has only existed for thousands of years. Of course we are going to mess up, and of course it is going to be a long learning process. To assume that from where we are at now, we could never live symbiotically with other life on a planet or with the planet itself, and to discount the possibility of terraforming another planet (a project which is at least a thousand year process) is just foolish. We can accomplish great things. We can be the seed to spread life from this small speck of space to vast, uninhabited expanses and perhaps even encounter and learn from others. Our petty problems now, assuming we can prevent them from destroying us, are not necessarily a reflection of the future of our species, especially considering the short time frame in which we will likely start integrating our consciousness into non-biological forms...
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe atmosphere of Mars is not missing due to lack of gravity. Mar's core has cooled to the point where it is no longer generating a strong magnetic field. The Earth's magnetic field is what protects our atmosphere from solar winds. Mar's lack of a strong magnetic field allows the solar wind to basically blow away the martian atmosphere over millions of years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere there is ice there is life. Earth's glaceirs contain life forms that multiply at extreme conditions found within glaciers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere there is ice there is life that lives in the ice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscience and fiction collide continuously on MARZ...what a great place for speculation and tearing apart the binding envelope of human thought and probabilities. No Doubt earthly humans will visit MARZ perhaps within 50 years if warfare and its attendant waste of lives, capital and resources cease to drag civilization down. MARZ can be inhabited, not just visited. The continuing development of technologies,knowledge and discovery of essential water resources make this colonization probable. Complete "terraforming" is not probable and not at all necessary...we shall learn how to live on MARZ by first inhabitingTHE MOON where we can build entire cities under pressurized domes and cylinders, which we already know how to build. The materials abound as both MARZ and THE MOON are mineral treasure troves waiting for us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi would like to say fix what we have done here ...so we can correct what is out there suitable enough for our habitation ...running off to mess something else up ...your making me pmsl ! Oh and by the way whos idea started crashing asteriods and comets into mars ....umm 'pinball' ring a bell out there ...whats earth a bumper ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthanks for your support
YsNUIy
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am beginning to wonder about the idea that we are the martians. I guess it was prompted by the fact that the DNA of Urtzi (The ice man) suggests that he comes from aline which is now extinct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso - someone said atmospheric pressure is due to gravity - is you sure? I thought atmospheric pressure was also due to the amount of atmosphere above the surface.
Three things must be accomplished to colonize mars beyond perhaps a few thousand people. First, sufficient water must be there for drinking, plant growth and atmosphere production ( something on the order of 20% of what earth has minimum). Second, sunlight must be increased about 100 times. Third, gravity must be increased about ten times. None of these can be accomplished sooner than about 50 years from now , if ever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe first step to terraforming Mars would be to place a moon in orbit around it that would stabilize the axial tilt. Then put asteroids onto Mars to increase its mass until it has enough gravity to hold onto a thick enough atmosphere for humans without special suit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes anyone know 1) The ratio of earth to moon mass & 2) If there are any asteroids large enough to fit into the same ratio for Mars? Is there a catalog of asteroids that we can look at for this kind of information?
The first thing that we need to do to start terraforming Mars would be to stabilize its axial tilt. So we need an asteroid in the same ration as earth:moon. Does anyone know of such an asteroid? Is there a catalog where we can find this?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen we can increase the mass by placing asteroids into Mars. The only problem I see with that is that we risk losing the water that is already there. Without the water, there is no need to terraform.
Marvin
I am always thinking that the glaciers from Mars will never melted into liquid water because of the condition of existence of liquid water. Our plannet earth has liquid water because of its excellent condition. However, maybe Mar's distance from the sun is different from the earth's. So, the ice on Mars may never become the liquid water
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI cannot help but chuckle at the potential for establishing colonies on Mars. What a way to avoid the current financial debacle on Earth! Mars! Get your acreage now! Ice with that Comrade? Perhaps a twist of lemon? Of course, the Sun goes 'super' on us and Mars becomes simply a hot tea! Marvelous! Perhaps our money could be better spent seeking other stars with a planetary system that would support our next move.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGravity isn't the reason Mars cannot hold onto it's atmosphere. It's the lack of a liquid iron core, like we have here on Earth, that protects our atmosphere from the solar winds. Without this we'll have to be permanently 'indoors' when we colonize Mars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso I think Earth is a little too close to Mars to be playing about with deflecting meteors just to give Mars more gravity - there are enough 'near misses' already !!
Mars is definately in the future of man. Yes it is true Martain gravity is too low to hold an atmosphere. Yes the solar wind will blow any created atmosphere away. Yes we could crash a lot of asteroids into it to increase its mass. But it would be far easier to go to Yellowstone park. Secreatly pump out a few hundred gallons of geiser water laced with surphur eating bacteria and send it to Venus. Deploy a series of modules to dispurse ice cubes at various altitudes released from a polor orbit craft dispensing them at diffrent latitudes. Thus covering as many factors of atmospheric pressure, temperture, wind velocity, solar radiation, ect. This tera forming of Venus could take many hundreds or even thousands of years but we could begain right now. The key to sucess is to SECREATLY take the water. Otherwise enviromentalist will hire lawyers to get injunctions to stop it. Poor defenceless bacteria. Someone needs to defend them against my evil plans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho's opposed to massive genetic manipulations?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you blew astroids into Mars, wouldn't most of the mass be turned to dust? Besides, that would seem like a costly project.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWouldn't most of the astroid mass turn into dust when it hit the surface? Besides, that seems like a costly procedure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen we, as a species, get smart enough and rich enough to throw asteroids at MARS ... well, thats just a temporary fix ... Dyson Spheres or Ring Worlds are the way to go. Hell, we'll probably use our Moon AND Mars as raw materials on these projects wih Europa and Enceladus thrown in for the water sport enthusiasts still around in, I dunno, a million years or so ... NOT!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was under the assumption that solar winds knocked off most of the Martian atmosphere because of a weak magnetic field, due to either a small or solid core. Where did you learn about the weakness of it's gravity being unable to hold onto an atmosphere?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was under the assumption that solar winds knocked off most of the Martian atmosphere because of a weak magnetic field, due to either a small or solid core. Where did you learn about the weakness of it's gravity being unable to hold onto an atmosphere?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, it is a mixture of problems. One is small gravity, the other is no magnetic core. A big enough planet would automatically have a hot core that could spin and create a magnetic field, and would solve the gravity problem, too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs there a way to register for comments without having to post a comment first? I only came here to register...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUm, well, I look forward to the NASA News Conference on the MSL...
When it comes to habitats for humans other than the Earth we will have to start with artificial ones in orbit. These will tend to be small. The moon will be next with slightly larger habitats and some actual economic potential in the form of light metals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom there we can expand to Mars with artificial habitats and choose to cool Venus or add mass and atmosphere to Mars. Perhaps even do both. Neither is likely to be productive for centuries. Venus has sufficient atmosphere but it has the wrong composition of air. The 500+ fahrenheit temperatures and acidic air make most of the Venus project take place outside the atmosphere.
To terraform Mars we need to add mass. This will probably come from asteroids out of the belt. Ships with ion drives would need to push asteroids into a Mars collision course. This is potentially dangerous but will yield the knowledge we need to protect from naturally occuring Earth strikes so is a good thing. Adding mass increases the strength of the gravitic field and attracts more matter such as air. Electro-magnetism helps retain air but is not the main factor, gravity is. EM protects against radiation and thus is vital too.
Yes, the asteroids become dust when they hit. Please learn some very basic physics to see why this concern is stupid at best. I have no idea if axial tilt stabilization is important or if a moon could be moved or created to do this. The comets or Jovian ice rings could provide much of the atmosphere once mass is high enough to hold the air. There would need to be a way to reflect additional light onto Mars so giant mirrors or something would be needed.
Next come the moons of Jupiter and then on outwards. For the wonk that said "why not just skip Mars and go extraSolar?" - It would take many generations to reach the nearest star and we don't even know if a ship would survive the turbulence of transitioning from the Solar winds to the galactic winds at the edge of the Solar system.
Just a side note: There is only one Solar system because there is only one star named Sol. "Solar" means "of, or involving Sol". A star and its planets are a stellar system. Other stellar systems are called stellar systems and when uniquely identified should use the name of the specific star. For example; Bernard's Star isn't a "solar system", it is the "Bernardian system". Epsilon Eridani isn't a "solar system" it is the Epsilon Eridani system. Multiple stars and their attendant planets are properly refered to as stellar systems and not "solar systems".
If we crashed a really huge asteroid into Venus and made it go off course, and it ran into Mars giving it both water and a magnetic core, would that work out? Could we put some acid eating bacteria in the outer atmosphere where it is more earthlike? It would just float, seeing as the surface pressure on Venus is 92 times that of earth's, equal to one kilometer below the water. This might just be really stupid. Does anyone know if this would work?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeems like the best strategy for Venus would be to use a solar mirror to block the light falling on the planet. This will gradually cool the atmosphere (many, many years) to the point where it will begin to rain and freeze on the surface. Once it's cooled enough to allow solid metal on the surface (!) we could try to fix some of the carbon dioxide somehow. Then there is the issue of increasing its rate of rotation, as its day is 7 earth days long. I imagine it would have to get down to no more than 36h to 48h to be 'terraformable'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn other words, Venus would be a very, very long-term project, involving some technology we don't understand yet.
Seems like the best strategy for Venus would be to use a solar mirror to block the light falling on the planet. This will gradually cool the atmosphere (many, many years) to the point where it will begin to rain and freeze on the surface. Once it's cooled enough to allow solid metal on the surface (!) we could try to fix some of the carbon dioxide somehow. Then there is the issue of increasing its rate of rotation, as its day is 7 earth days long. I imagine it would have to get down to no more than 36h to 48h to be 'terraformable'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn other words, Venus would be a very, very long-term project, involving some technology we don't understand yet.
Hellas Impact Crater..... in Mars early life this impact created a hole 6 MILES deep and 1,200 miles WIDE!!! This glacial ice mentioned could very well have been covered by the ejecta from Hellas. Around the impact the surface is covered a mile and a half thick! Why this impact crater is ignored by researchers makes me wonder if there's a reason? The geological processes shut down beacuse of this "penetration". The volcano's on the opposite side of the impact are obviously a result of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt the university ! Dr.Kamlander@aon.at
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLook at all these moronic comments UGGG! This is what I meant on another article I commented on. The shear weight of dummies (those not trained in critical thinking nor affiliated with anything science-oriented) is making intelligence a thing of the past (in the US, anyway).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdude that is what i was thinking also. Mars has no atmosphere similar to Earth's (not that it doesn't have an atmosphere or never had at all) coz it doesn't have the things Earth has. I have always thought of it this way, Earth is in the goldilocks zone but it has a lot of factors that keep life well here, without which no life could exist as we know it here. Mars lacks these:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. No heavy iron core - Earth has a heavy iron core that creates the magnetic field that protects us from all sorts of deadly radiation and atmospheric erosion.
2. No Molten lava to keep it warm enough to sustain liquid water, life and keep that precious atmosphere by generating a strong magnetic field to protect the atmosphere...
3. No huge moon in the ratio to Earth's - The moon plays a very vital role for sustaining life; it creates a warping effect on Earth's form, thereby cozing tidal forces that keep Earth's core hot and molten. Thereby affecting the above also. It also keeps Earth in good orbit...
Too many things, but the bottom line is, with our current tech, Mars cannot be terraformed. That said doesn't not stop us from trying or starting. Terraforming will start by adding mass to Mars.Then hurl along a moon-sized asteroid in the Mars-Earth ratio (But a little larger, since Mars is cooler) from the asteroid belt and put it into orbit around Mars that should start things going. At least its core will start to heat up, melt the ice... It will be a chain reaction... Then play with the other factors to speed it up such as making it warmer, breathable and hospitable...
Questions are; can we do this fiscally and technologically? How long does it take? Will we not put things off-balance (remember, things are perfectly in order out there, Mars' orbit may change or as we hurl its big ugly new moon, others may follow due to gravitation and coz another Tunguska event on Earth or something of the ping pong thingy)? Should we do it this way or even do it at all?
As it is now yes, no liquid can exist on Mars. It is a cold meatball. A bigger moon is the answer. It cozes tidal forces that keep Mars wabbling or warping like Earth, thereby warming it up a lot enough to melt its core.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is far far beyond what i think we can achieve at the moment. 4.5 light years is not a joke. That's the distance to the nearest star, one we are not even certain has a habitable planet. With our current travel tech, it is impossible, even in the foreseeable future. Saka siyana nazvo izvozvo (so leave it for now). We may study like Kepler but not think of going there now. Here we are talking about going somewhere, us not probes. If we can't take men to Mars now and are stuck near Earth, not even the moon, how can we go to another star?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistrue too...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou are right man, but i think humans should stop playing around with the moon. Our moon does a lot to sustain life on Earth. Any slight changes may well coz us to suffer or loose our precious home.
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