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Enormous Amount of Frozen Water Found on Mars
schweini writes "Space.com is reporting that the Mars Express probe's MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding) experiment has detected and measured an enormous amount of water ice near Mars' south pole, which would be sufficient to submerge the whole planet's surface underneath approximately 10m of water on average."
Facts about the Oceans:
Area: about 140 million square miles (362 million sq km), ore nearly 71% of the Earth's surface.
Average Depth: 12,200 feet (3,720 m).
http://www.mos.org/oceans/planet/features.html
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
They've been looking for signs of liquid water, primarily in the distant past.
estimated volume of ice found = surface area of Mars x 36 feet
Because, in America we don't care about achievement in discovery. The typical attitude is something like why should we spend two billion dollars exploring space when we have real problems in our own country.
Yeah, that really explains why NASA has a budget about the size of all of the other space programs in the world combined. And it sure as hell explains why NASA was the only space agency in the world to launch any probes to Jupiter or further (including the recent probes to Saturn and Pluto). And it sure as hell explains why NASA is the only agency that has successfully landed on Mars and why NASA recently launched MRO.
You sir, are full of shit. As far as planetary exploration goes, NASA is second to none. NASA probably launches 5 times as many probes as the ESA and probably spends 10 times as much money on the research from the probes (including additional funding from the Dept of Education and NSF). But if you want to debate what is happening today, compare how many space probes NASA is currently operating in our solar system compared to the rest of the world. If the ESA thinks that putting up Mars Express, Venus Express, Rosetta, and the piggyback Huygens probe makes them a real space exploration power, they are sadly mistaken. In that same period NASA has launched the multibillion dollar Cassini probe (the expensive part), Deep Space 1&2, Mars Climate Orbiter (failed), Mars Polar Lander (failed), Stardust, Genesis, Mars Odyssey, CONTOUR (failed), two half billion dollar Mars Exploration Rovers, MESSENGER, Deep Impact, MRO, New Horizons, and STEREO. There is no comparison whatsoever.
One of the most gorgeous anime series ever made, "Aria" (two seasons, "Aria the Animation" and "Aria the Natural"), was based on exactly this concept: we terraformed Mars and overshot. It's now a water planet, whose name has been changed to Aqua. An ocean planet of island chains, each set of islands was colonized by a different culture. The animation is set in the city of Neo-Venezia, the original having sunk under the ocean of Earth ("Manhome") long before.
This story really startled me, because now it's actually sounding possible.
The year is 2303, and tourists are gliding in gondolas along the canals of Neo-Venezia, in the care of the undines...
TFA states that there's that amount of water in one deposit.
There's probably other deposits, with much, much more....
"There's evidence that about 10 times or maybe even 100 times that much water has flowed across the surface of Mars to carve the various channels, the outflow valleys and other features we see in the images and topography data"
They're just saying that, they've found where a bunch of that water IS, but they still have to find where the rest of it is. If it's there.
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
It's one of those statements meant to boggle, like "if you stacked all the books ever printed, they would reach the moon" [that's bunk, just made that up].
Anyway, you asked for a sea level map of Mars, so here ya go.
Damn those pesky terrorists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_belts
1 .htm
Due to its lack of a magnetic field, the solar wind pushes gases off Mars, resulting in an atmosphere which is much thinner than it would be otherwise.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast31jan_
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
"(e.g. 'Witches' is best interpreted as potion-makers in the Old Testament, homosexuality is usually referred to in regard to rampant sex without regard, which was particularly dangerous in the age before real medicine,[....]"
So, basically, you interpret the bible like you see fit.
That's all fine and good, but if it's up to any individual to interpret it the way it fits him/her, then people who believe 'witches refer to more then potionmakers' and 'homosexuality is about same-sex sexual behaviour' have as much validity then your interpretation of the matter.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
More massive even too. Does something in (near) permanent orbit "weigh" anything?
Relax I just want some peanuts.