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Mars Volcanoes May Still Erupt
Q3vi1 writes "Space. com reports, Images from a European space probe reveal recent glacial deposits and lava flows on Mars that suggest the red planet is more active than many scientists had thought."
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Volcanic eruptions have happened in the last 4 million years....
:)
That's only about 15 iterations "emerge kde" on my gentoo laptop
If it's as recent as 4 million years that would put to bed the dead Mars theory. The idea that Mars lacks a molten core. If there was magma that recently there would still be a molten core. It would take hundreds of millions if not billions of years to go from volcanic to a cold core. There would almost have to be liquid underground water. Good news for life and also water for explorers.
Well, we have only been closely looking at mars for (in an astronomical sense) a fraction of a second. Just because there hasn't been any evidence of eruption yet doesn't really mean anything.
Mars does have a molten core, according to JPL. Strikingly similar to both earth, and venus. Interesting stuff, none the less.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
No.
1.The Great Machine has awakened and is starting the terraforming process.
2.Didn't you folks play Doom3? Hello Hellgate.
Maybe this is some elaborate backstory hype before they release DN: Forever?
If volcanoes supposably created our atmosphere does that mean that if we leave Mars alone for a few million years it will produce it's own life? (Non-bacterial)
Have you metaroderated recently?
The major exeptions to this are Io and Europa. The major difference here is that the geological activity on these moons is thought to be the result of their proximity to Jupiter and Neptune respectively with the resulting gravitiational "squeeze" the cause.
"Regions that are smooth as a baby's bottom must have been "resurfaced" recently, in geologist's parlance."
My babies bottom is typically surfaced in an unidentifiable brown pitted substance, and is far from smooth.
Think you can program? Prove it @ the geek challenges
So where are the little green men?
...suggest the red planet is more active than many scientists had thought<snip/>
Usually that's something the parents discover...
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Anyone have a clue?
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
The question is rather, is the spirit stoned?
OR
is the spirit just stuck?
OR
Has there been to much to drink?
There goes the planet...
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I thought Venus was still active? http://www.nineplanets.org/venus.html " Data from Magellan's imaging radar shows that much of the surface of Venus is covered by lava flows. There are several large shield volcanoes (similar to Hawaii or Olympus Mons) such as Sif Mons (right). Recently announced findings indicate that Venus is still volcanically active, but only in a few hot spots; for the most part it has been geologically rather quiet for the past few hundred million years."
Also, geothermal energy is a great resource to have when colonizing planets. Io and Europa are not as exciting prospects for colonoization, for a number of reason, as Mars is.
stuff
(don't bother submitting it as a story, I already tried.)
If you know you are not interested, why do you desire an explanation?
For those who *are* interested, this can have any of several significance. According to an installment of NOVA on PBS called "Origions", a popular theory of planatary evolution holds that a hot molten interior in an inner planet such as Earth is responsible for creating the planetary magnetic field that shields the planet from the abrasive effects of the solar wind. Without this magnetic shield, the sun's radiation strips away the planet's atmosphere and other volatile compounds such as water. It was thought that Mars, being smaller than Earth, had a core that cooled and solidified more quickly and lost it's magnetic field early in it's life. With not magnetic field to shield it's surface, the atmosphere thinned and water became scarce.
If Mars happens to be more geologically active than we once thought, another theory will be needed to account for the signs of a wetter martian past. Quite possibly, we need to reevaulate the level of protection offered by the molten core of our own Earth against the erosive effects of the solar wind.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
If you know you are not interested, why do you desire an explanation?
Because if this means that we might have Martians visiting Earth or colonies on Mars soon, it would matter to me or I might find that interesting. I don't care much about chemistry, but I find it interesting that two deadly chemicals combine to form salt.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
Erm weren't we supposed to stay away from Europa? All the rest of them are our's and that whole bit?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Triton, the one near Neptune, is a very strange object. One of the coldest places in the solar system yet it manages to have geological activity and even a thin atmosphere with clouds. It's also possible that the entire atmosphere collapses into a frost covering the half of the moon that's in winter at the time. Not to mention the moon orbits Neptune backwards, suggesting that it's a captured object from the Kuiper Belt. If true this means it's the largest such object, not Pluto. There are missions being planned to orbit Neptune and send landers to Triton. Should be good!
...
Only 20+ years to go
Mars Volcanoes May Still Erupt
so beware when u play doom3 !
fifteen jugglers, five believers
Venus isn't inactive it just has long periods of inactivity before enough pressure builds and a huge amount of its surface gets covered in molten lava. This is due to no water being on the planet thereby lacking the necessary lubrication for plate technonics and an active surface like us.
"I don't which is worse, that everyone has a price, or that the price is always so low"--Hobbes
You know, this just isn't funny. The jokes obvious, no-one needed it said. Ever hear a joke 50 times in real life? I have, and it aint pretty. Yet it seems to be the norm here at slashdot. Says a lot about nerds.
Earth's magnetic field exchange its poles from times to times, doesn't it? So, a tentative explanation for the lack of a Martian magnetic field despite its molten core would be that Mars also exchange poles from times to times and coincidentally we are observing the planet during one of the transitions (when the magnetism would weaken and eventually reach zero). Of course, in order to test this theory, geologic, or better saying, "areologic" evidence would have to be corrected. (The flips of Earth's magnetic field were discovered by analysing the magnetic alignment of the crystal in rocks of different ages, as far as I remember.)
Hearing and reading a joke isn't the same thing. If you hear it you're usually forced to do so, and you might also feel inclined to give some indicator that you recognized it as a joke.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
No one has realized this, but the human race has been watched by closely with envious eyes by Martians.
They are the ones who mysteriously clean the Rovers....although iam befuddled why.
They are vanguard of an invading army....
Just in time for Steven Spielberg's movie opening...Boy what a chance for him!!!
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I distinctly remember reading in Dickinson, Sagan and Clarke books back in the 80s that Olympus was an active volcano. The "largest active volcano in the solar system".
Yeah well in Soviet Russia the joke is funny.
I know Americans are fond of verbing nouns, but adjectiving them unnecessarily is almost as painful.
Either "Martian Volcanoes May Still Erupt" or "Mars' Volcanoes May Still Erupt" would be correct. I know that similar practices are accepted when the normal adjective is inappropriate for some reason (thus the "England football team" rather than "English..."), but I can't see any reason to do so here.
youve got it all wrong.
Somebody has opened up a gateway to hell (which for those who dont know, makes it kind of toasty)
Well yeah, but they haven't delivered on the Monlith front and still no bloomin' star child so I reckon all bets are off now.
I'll bite.
According to an installment of NOVA on PBS called "Origions",
I hope this is your spelling, not theirs, though it might explain the errors.
Without this magnetic shield, the sun's radiation strips away the planet's atmosphere and other volatile compounds such as water
No. The problem here is not solar wind, but solar radiation, which is currently deflected by the Earths magnetic field. Radiation hurts.
The atmosphere will not magically disappear, though it may change radically. The atmospere stays here due to gravity, which, for its size, Earth has quite a bit of.
With not magnetic field to shield it's surface, the atmosphere thinned and water became scarce
The atmosphere of Mars disappeared (assumption 1) due to low gravity more than anything else. To achieve a sea level air pressure similar to Earths, a Martian atmosphere would be many times deeper, with the upper reaches so far out they can easily bleed off into space. With no/very little gasseous production on Mars, the atmosphere is not replaced.
It depends on the scale of this image... If the little round "pebbles" are actually big boulders, then that's a decent sized pond or small lake.
Just how big do you think the rovers are? That was taken by Opportunity.
That was taken on the crater wall. There are other pictures that show the surrounding area and it's obvious that it's not water or ice. That one frame that you showed does look like ice/water, but when you see a wider angle shot of the area you can tell that it's not ice/water.
j pg
The angle that the "puddle" is laying on the wall tells you that it isn't liquid, since it would run downhill.
Here's a high res pic of an area nearby:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA07083.
You can see that the "puddles" are actually deposits of fine sand that are dark in color.
The journey time with nuclear propulsion is said to be 20 years, but yes I forgot about the actual build time. I just re-read the article , they hope to launch in 2016. So it'll be 30+ years I have to wait!
And that's only if NASA select the mission.
He said the orbiter^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H , erm, Slashdot users might get lucky in coming years and "see some action, but the chances are slim."
Sorry, fellow geeks, no action for us anytime soon.
I for one welcome our magma martian overlords
lick the cancle button (at least thats what our Chinese QA says)
and old Koreans think it's funny too
The core does not have convection patterns which happen to generate a dynamo? The core is not surrounded by molten material and there are no convection flows? The mantle is mostly silicon and is not magnetohydrodynamically active? We happened to get there while the dynamo is fluctuating and there is no field, just as seems to happen sometimes on Earth? There are actually seventeen molten spots but we haven't detected that and don't know what to expect?
Your Martian life experience is a tad low. Traces of what might have been Mars bacteria have been found in a rock from Mars.
Actually, the methane on Mars is being interpreted as being the waste product of bacteria which may be eating a food source.
If that is the case, we are quite lucky to have gotten to Mars right now. The bacteria will die when the food is exhausted. If the food is buried organic matter from a past solar-powered surface life, there is no more food being created. With the huge growth rate of bacteria, they would consume any food source in a short time. Either their metabolic rate is excruciatingly slow or the access to the food supply is restricted.
The deep hot biosphere viewpoint is that methane is probably created by geologic/chemical processes, and is the food source for deep-living bacteria. So the methane on Mars might just be rock gas and not a sign of life. But if methane is reaching the atmosphere, there still is a supply which may be feeding bacteria.
One part of the deep biosphere theory is that the food source for bacteria has to be unavailable to the bacteria, and the food is only available at a restricted rate. Methane from depths which are too hot for bacteria would allow life to exist for as long a time as the methane continues to trickle up to cooler regions.
So the methane tells us to keep looking for life, as there is still a food source.
Methane leaking up from deep below also hints at volcanic activity. Carbon fluids are suspected of causing upward cracks and being significant participants in volcanic and earthquake activity on Earth. Volcanoes often emit carbon in several forms. It is hardly surprising for both methane and volcanoes to be present.
yup, I feel stupid. Thanks for expanding my knowledge though.