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Water (ice) Found on Mars?

Posted by Hemos on from the colonization-ho! dept.

jeffthompson writes "Images from the Mars Global Surveyor show formations near the equator that were possibly made by ice inder the surface. And there's a chance the ice is still there which would be a prime place to look for microbes."

1 of 10 comments (clear)

  1. Water on Mars by Yazeran · · Score: 5
    The experts have claimed that water has been responsible for a number of landforms on Mars (starting of course with the "rivers"). Oftentimes a new theory will present itself, landforms resembling those on Earth, etc. and a plausible theory based on (say) CO2 flows could account for it. So we shouldn't get all excited over this.

    Except that in order for CO2 to become a liquid at all, you need an atmospheric pressure ABOVE that found here on earth (CO2 is 'dry ice' as it cannot exist in the liqid state unelss under pressure). If the beforementioned structures were to be verified as created by CO2-liquid, this would be a verry important and optimistic result, as the pressure on Mars vould have th have been much higher than today.
    The structures found by the sattelites the past few years suggests that flowing water have existed on the surface of Mars in the past.

    I hope it is still there (as some of the images returned have suggested, at least it was there some 10000 years ago), as this would make manned trips to Mars possible and practical.

    Many landforms found on Mars have been made by flowing liquid (as they are so like those found on earth), and water is just the only plausible liquid avaliable on Mars.

    Yours Yazeran

    Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.