Geothermal Activity on Mars?

An anonymous reader writes "This article on the New Scientist site reports that Mars Odyssey has detected warm spots (20-40 degrees warmer irrespective of sunlight, day or night) in the Hellas basin."

Comments

Re:Doh it's obvious.

[gilesjuk]

Ok, I'll lay off the crack. Must use preview!!

Re:Question.

[fehlschlag]

Yeah, but I don't enjoy mythology rap near as much.

Re:I, for one, am GLAD!

[Mostly a lurker]

You make a good point, but I think we (meaning the human race) will go to Mars within the next twenty years. My prediction is that it will be the Chinese. The US would have severe problems funding it -- anti missile technology to protect against (well something) and other military projects will take priority. The Chinese want to be the next superpower. The recognition they would receive from pulling something like this off would be worth any investment to them.

20 Years !!! Are you insane ??

[Anonymous Coward]

The technology does NOT exist (nor is on the drawing board) to get a human crew to Mars and back. There is no aspect of a mission to Mars that has been realistically worked out, the human race is 50yrs to centuries away from a mission that complex.

Re:20 Years !!! Are you insane ??

[Pulzar]

There is no aspect of a mission to Mars that has been realistically worked out, the human race is 50yrs to centuries away from a mission that complex.

Actually, almost everything has been worked out, except for the 'surviving the long flight time in space' part, altough a lot of work on that is done up on the ISS at the moment.

The rest of the mission is fairly straightforward, at least in the world of manned space travel.