Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Massive Martian Glaciers Found

Posted by timothy on from the could-be-a-trick dept.

Kozar_The_Malignant writes "Scientific American is reporting that 'data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter point to vast glaciers buried beneath thin layers of crustal debris.' Data from the surface-penetrating radar on MRO revealed that two well-known mid-latitude features are composed of solid water ice. One is about three times the size of the City of Los Angeles. This certainly makes the idea of establishing a station on Mars far more plausible."

2 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. SciAm sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    (American Scientist is much better)

    The original NASA press release is at

    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro-20081120.html

  2. Re:Why? by hkmarks · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Ice" and "metal" have different meanings in planetary science than regular old chemistry. "Ice" can refer to any solid "volatile" substance (water, ammonia, methane, hydrogen...) and "metal" (IIRC) refers to other solids (carbon, silicon, iron...). Since lots of carbon dioxide ice has been found on mars in the past, it's worth making the distinction.

    Also, when you're talking about the makeup of stars, "metal" refers to everything other than hydrogen or helium.

    IANA astronomer, planetary geologist, etc.