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New Cave Entrances Seen on Mars

Posted by Zonk on from the oh-good-lord-what-is-that-arrgh dept.

Riding with Robots writes "The Mars Odyssey orbiter has come across what look to be openings to cavernous spaces under the surface of Mars. NASA reports the find is fueling interest in potential underground habitats and sparking searches for caves elsewhere on the Red Planet. These latest images follow other recent discoveries of intriguing places to explore. From the article: 'The find has led some to wonder if these or other caves on the planet may provide shelter to life or former life on the Red Planet. "Somewhere on Mars, caves might provide a protected niche for past or current life, or shelter for humans in the future," said Tim Titus of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff. These caves, however, likely never hosted life due to the extreme altitude of their location. "Even if life has ever existed on Mars, it may not have migrated to this height," said Cushing.'"

4 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Old news, from APRIL 2! by Tmack · · Score: 4, Informative
    Why is this being reported just now by discovery? Are they competing with /. on who can post the oldest articles and get away with calling it news? Really, this was posted on space.com back in APRIL!!!

    See Here

    Blah

    Tm

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    1. Re:Old news, from APRIL 2! by x1n933k · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually this is different. If we look at NASA's site:

      09.21.07 - Odyssey Finds Possible Cave Skylights on Mars NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano.

      Sure, both reports mention a volcano's but there's no way NASA would report the same thing twice, right?

      [J]

  2. There is good reason to get to those caves. by MrCopilot · · Score: 5, Informative
    http://www.highmars.org/niac/niac01.html

    Project Objectives:

    The primary objective of this feasibility demonstration is to show that relatively simple, easily-deployable subsurface habitats are constructible in caves, lavatubes, and other subsurface voids. Further, we intend to demonstrate that they are suitable to sustain small animals, plants, and ultimately humans in an otherwise hostile environment.

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  3. Re:Mars robots by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Will they steer for the caves?

    Even if they were in range (they're not), there are two other problems. First, being solar powered, they couldn't go into the caves because they would have no power to get out if they got stuck or lost. Second, there would be no usable radio communication inside a cave because the walls block the waves.

    Seems what is needed is some kind of expendable micro-bot that launches from a bigger bot.

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