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Martian Sea Discovered

Posted by timothy on from the martian-ice-cube-you-mean dept.

mpesce writes "New Scientist is reporting that a large sea of frozen ice (between 800 and 900 km in size and 45 m deep) has been discovered by the ESA's Mars Express Probe. Here's the kicker: the sea of block ice is only five degrees away from the Martian equator. New Scientist also links to a PDF of a paper to be presented next month about the finding." Update: 02/21 15:30 GMT by T : Note: that's 45 meters deep, not 45 kilometers deep.

10 of 508 comments (clear)

  1. Office of Redundancy Department by Engineer-Poet · · Score: 3, Insightful
    the whole attraction of mars is that people can go there, terraform it, and then greenhouse the shit out of it...
    Except that terraforming it involves greenhousing the shit out of it first. ;-)
    --

    Sustainability and energy independence essay
  2. About Terraforming... by Tylo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If we could terraform Mars, do you really think it would be hospitable? There's more to Earth than water and oxygen that makes it possible for life to live here. The moon, for instance, is just in the right position to affect our tides so they aren't out of control. And the magnetic field that helps move that nasty radiation around us... I wonder what it would mean for Earth if we terraformed Mars, changed it's magnetic field. It might even effect life here. I say we leave Mars alone before we kill ourselves.

    --
    - Tylo
    1. Re:About Terraforming... by vidarh · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The thing is that when people mention terraforming a lot of people automatically assume the only goal that would be sufficient to be useful is to make it possible for humans to live entirely without any form of support.

      But even a minor increase in atmospheric pressure would have a massive impact on the feasability and safety of large domes, for instance, because it would even out the pressure difference between the outside and inside of a habitable dome.

      Just getting to a temperature and atmosphere where humans won't die instantly without a suit, or can work/survive outside in warm clothes and an oxygen mask will have a dramatic impact on how easy it will be to have a sustained presence, and the safety of a colony that would otherwise have to have massive safeguards against damages to habitats.

      Keep in mind that there are many areas on earth that are extremely inhospitable. While it would be great if Mars could once be as hospitable as the more pleasant areas of the earth, that doesn't mean that less won't still make it possible (or even interesting) to live there.

      Humans are quite resilient.

  3. Re:45 *meters* deep by misleb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If US citizens can't drink the water in Mexico, I seriously doubt we'll be able to drink the water on Mars. Hopefully for the same reasons...

    -matthew

    --
    "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
  4. Re:Wow... by Hard_Code · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Imagine living on a planet where you get tax breaks for driving big inefficient vehicles that produce greenhouse gases."

    Um, we ALREADY DO.

    SUV, truck owners get a big tax break
    CONs of the SUV Tax Break

    --

    It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
  5. Warmer near the Equator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1st it is warmer near the equator, so... so that would be a nicer place to live.

    2nd if it can exist near the equator, it might also be found in the colder areas.

  6. And isn't known to be water by stewby18 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't the much more important mistake that they don't actually know that it's water?

  7. Re:Wow... by DogsBollocks · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A new perspective.

    I spent several years working in and around the small northern communities in Canada's Arctic.

    The Inuit population there refer to water as "molten ice", because ice is the most common state.

    Were as we southerners (south of the arctic circle) consider ice as frozen water.

    Oh well, I thought it was funny.

  8. spare us your sarcasm by idlake · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Everyone knows that nature is static, and how things were 50, 100, or 1000 years ago are the way that they should be today, tomorrow, and forever!

    The reason why large scale or long-term changes to the environment are so risky is not, as you mistakenly state, that nature is static. Rather, it is that nature is highly dynamic on time scales spanning millennia and we don't understand the dynamics yet. A significant change that we think produces benefits may, in the long term, have devastating consequences.

    Once we understand natural systems sufficiently well to be able to predict the consequences of our actions in the long term, then we can engage in deliberate planet-wide engineering efforts, here on earth on on Mars. Until then, anything that alters our atmosphere, oceans, or ecology significantly is Russian roulette.

    1. Re:spare us your sarcasm by idlake · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It implies that very bad things can happen, but how can you know, if so little of these matters are understood?

      Do you have to know how to land an airplane in order to figure out that the consequences of doing it wrong are bad?

      because I too fear playing around with the environment might cause destruction of a magnitude we cant even imagine. There seem to be some indications that this is possible, but I havent seen any proof yet. But until it's not disproven I's rather be safe.

      Actually, we do know some of the consequences. Numerous human civilizations have been wiped out by self-inflicted ecological disaster. We know how sea levels have varied over time. We know of species that have disappeared because they inflicted ecological disaster on themselves (of course, they couldn't reason about their own behavior). And there are indications that global weather patterns can be pushed into various fairly stable states, some of which are highly unfavorable to human life and civilization.

      So, we know all sorts of bad things can happen. We don't know what effects our actions will have, but we do know that current conditions are pretty good for us, so we should avoid doing things that might change them until we know what we are doing.