It's in the gallery, folks! I got this offa the APOD site a few days ago. They say it's WATER ice, and woah, there sure is a LOT of it! Logic would suggest that it wells up from below, perhaps from a aquifer. Hopefully, NASA will send probes there...
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Re: Best Pic Yet!!!
Fri, July 29, 2005 - 7:25 PM
Ice lake found on the Red Planet
A disc of water ice in a Martian crater, ESA
The presence of water makes life a more likely possibility
A giant patch of frozen water has been pictured nestled within an unnamed impact crater on Mars.
The photographs were taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board Mars Express, the European Space Agency probe which is exploring the planet.
The ice disc is located on Vastitas Borealis, a broad plain that covers much of Mars' far northern latitudes.
The existence of water on Mars raises the prospect that past or present life will one day be detected.
It also boosts the chances that manned missions can eventually be sent to the Red Planet.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4727847.stm -
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Re: Best Pic Yet!!!
Fri, July 29, 2005 - 9:18 PMHopefully, they'll find more like this one. -
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Sun, July 31, 2005 - 1:33 AMIs it just me, or does this lake look like it's leaking out of a spring or aquifer of some sort? A superficial armchair analysis seems to indicate that it's coming out of a source near its center.
Very cool, in any case. -
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Re: Best Pic Yet!!!
Sun, July 31, 2005 - 3:47 AMYep. I was thinking the same thing. Not likely that that much ice would come from above, falling as snow from the sky (although you do see what appears as a dusting of snow on the crater rim), so it would stand to reason that this water is an upwelling from below. Either way, water ice on the surface of Mars is a very cool thing. No pun intended.
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Thu, August 4, 2005 - 11:06 PMThis looks a lot like the remains of a comet. See the flash frozen ice on the right crater wall. I would love to believe that it's water, but the shape is suspiciously odd. -
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Fri, August 5, 2005 - 8:41 PMI'm no astronomer, but how could a comet possibly survive any impact at such low pressure without subliming? -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
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Re: Best Pic Yet!!!
Tue, August 9, 2005 - 7:45 PMIt would vaporize on Earth because we have forty miles of atmosphere, but Mars only has a mile or two of extremely thin atmosphere. There would be more subliming from the kinetic energy released by the impact than the atmospheric entry. I confirmed this my running a simulated model using the X-planes simulator. Even approaching at a few thousand miles an hour doesn't create a whole lot of atmospheric friction.
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Wed, August 10, 2005 - 6:23 PMI meant that it would sublime on impact. On Earth, our atmosphere would cause much of it to re-condense, but on Mars I'm not so sure. -
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Wed, August 10, 2005 - 6:36 PMIt's an interesting problem. There are quite a few factors here. Not only speed and size of comet, but also how long ago it hit and whether or not Mars' atmosphere was much thicker at that time.
Again, this calls for further study, mates!!! -
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Wed, September 7, 2005 - 12:14 PMESA has been producing some great pics. The idea of a large icy object hitting the surface occurred to me when the photo was posted on APOD. With the lower gravity (vs. Earth's) and extremely thin atmosphere, it does present some interesting possibilities. Further study, aye ... -
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Sun, September 11, 2005 - 2:44 PMPersonally I believe that one day we will be drilling core samples of a comet and we'll find frozen in it aquatic organisms and fish from another planet. What if comets were droplets of water ripped from Mars by a massive impact? We have seen that Mars suffered a catastrophic impact--bad enough to likely have caused the core to vent on the opposite side of the planet (Olympus Mons.)
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Wed, October 25, 2006 - 1:46 PMNot to mention angle-of-impact, planetary rotation, and composition of the comet...
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Re: Best Pic Yet!!!
Wed, October 25, 2006 - 8:20 AM<<The existence of water on Mars raises the prospect that past or present life will one day be detected.
It also boosts the chances that manned missions can eventually be sent to the Red Planet. >>
These two concepts might be in conflict. Exobiology poses health and ethical problems I should think. It might be easier to colonize a lifeless rock. Hey -- we've got one real close by!
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Re: Best Pic Yet!!!
Wed, October 25, 2006 - 8:16 AMUp inside that crater wall might make a good campsite, affording some sandstorm protection. Run a pipe to the water supply with a solar collector. At the pace we're going, it should happen by the year 3000 -- barring an asteroid hit on Earth or its Venusification.
