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CO2 Jets Bursting From Martian Ice Cap?
jeffsenter writes "NASA believes this may be the scene on the Martian South Pole as spring-time sunlight heats dust trapped in a layer of CO2 ice, causing it to sublime and ultimately burst through the seasonal upper dry ice layer. Here is the press release based on the findings in visible light and infrared from NASA's Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor. Actual pictures of the spotting presumably caused by CO2/dust bursts on the Martian pole."
I remember seeing these pictures or ones like them on a "weird science" web site a year or two ago. They thought that the pictures might show bushes growing on Mars. I guess you could consider the CO2 jets to be very fast growing bushes. The jets do seem more plausable though.
un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
Time to start regulating CO2 emissions on mars!
They're not green are they?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Dont worry ignorant Martians, Al Gore will be there soon to save you from yourselves.
Feel free to zap him with your fancy lasers, we won't miss him.
//TODO: Insert catchy phrase
Hmm, yeah i see ice bursting into 'sandy fountains' all over the earth when summer comes to each hemisphere ... errr, hang on, no, the ice just melts and runs away, or simply sublimes and vanishes into thin air.
Why on mars would it be any different?
I think astronomers and 'planetary scientists' have really lost the plot lately - they're letting their imaginations get in the way of, well, common sense.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
What is this, Total Recall?
;)
Thanks for pulling that tracking device out of your nose, I think it helped with your accent
Would this change the atmospheric pressure of mars significantly or even in
the local area of the vents?
They're talking about carbon dioxide (CO2) ice. In Earth's atmosphere, CO2 turns to gas at temperatures above -78C. On Mars, with no atmospheric pressure, it would be gaseous at even lower temperatures. So the fountains would happen as soon as the temperature rose above whatever that point is. Now who's lost the plot?
... start ... the reactor .....
See you at the pahty, Victah!
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
We'll see who's right, if they ever waste the money to go visit.
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\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
You were quite happy to accuse scientists of having lost the plot, but it seems you're not so ready to accept that your own criticism in fact applied to you.
The wonderful thing about science is that it allows us to make good predictions about many things without necessarily wasting the money to visit a place. (Although in this case, they have visited, and the information on which this latest theory is based comes largely from a satellite in Mars orbit.)
We already know that Mars has CO2 ice, and we can calculate quite exactly what temperature that ice melts at, and we know that when it melts, it becomes gaseous (hence the name "dry ice"). We have photos taken from orbit of the process which takes place in the Martian spring. All that remains is to confirm the model that's been proposed for the polar jets. However, the model makes a great deal of intuitive sense, matches the evidence, and explains quite well a phenomenon that's been known for years. This is a good example of how science makes progress. You should be glad of it, because without this sort of thing, you'd still be living in a cave.