Evidence Of Glaciers On Mars Suggests Recent Climate Activity

Last year, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured high-resolution images of the Red Planet which showed many mesas, valleys, and rock debris which appeared to be (geologically speaking) recent formations. A team of scientists from Brown University analyzed the photographs and found evidence that the terrain was carved by large glaciers much more recently than they thought possible. Climate activity on Mars was thought to have quieted over 3 billion years ago, but these glaciers would have been around within the last 10-100 million years. "The finding could have implications for the life-on-Mars argument by strengthening the case for liquid water. Ice can melt two ways: by temperature or by pressure. As currently understood, the Martian climate is dominated by sublimation, the process by which solid substances are transformed directly to vapor. But ice packs can exert such strong pressure at the base to produce liquid water, which makes the thickness of past glaciers on its surface so intriguing."

Comments

So that's where the Glaciers have gone...

[Anonymous Coward]

They've all migrated to Mars.

It's an inconvenient truth...

next Mars probe lands on May 25, 2008

[peter303]

Phoenix lands at the Martian arctic circle to poke around the icy soils there. It has a back-hoe arm and sophisticated chemical analyzers, but no wheels. It will last until the end of the year until the pole region enters the long winter night.

Re:next Mars probe lands on May 25, 2008

[CraftyJack]

Ice is the goal. There's no such thing as "too icy" here. The scoop has a rasp on the end of it that will be used to grind some of the icy soil into the scoop. The robotic arm will then dump those ice shavings into the analysis instruments (TEGA and MECA).

Re:Trolls are too fast

[Valdrax]

Let me make the obvious point that this news is in no way an argument against anthropogenic climate change, not in the least because they're talking about events that are MILLIONS OF YEARS OLD. Bull. Everyone smart enough to know that climate change isn't caused by mankind knows that the universe isn't more than a few thousand years old.