Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Martian Riviera
A team of scientists led by the University College of London have discovered a frozen sea near the Martian equator. Although water on Mars has been in the news a lot lately, this is apparently the firts direct evidence that there has been liquid water on the planet "not so long ago." (The water flowed some 5 million years ago when we've just started evolving from apes to hominids.) This discovery is pretty important because water means life and chances are, the scientists say, that some of that life may still be surviving.
The water that formed the sea appears to have sprung from beneath the Martian surface, just like Earthly brooks. It fowed down in a catastrophic flood from a series of fractures known as the Cerberus Fossae. It inundated an area about the size of the North Sea and was initially 45 metres deep on average.
Because of the freezing weather on Mars, the water immediately turned to ice. The pack-ice floes have drifted into obstacles, and in many places have become grounded on islands when the water level dropped. Ice is unstable at the surface of Mars because of the low atmospheric pressure, and sublimes away (changes straight from ice to vapour without passing through the liquid state) into the atmosphere, but volcanic ash and dust can preserve it. Thick ice trapped within enclosed craters suggests that most of the ice is still there.
Click on the headline to see pictures.
The water that formed the sea appears to have sprung from beneath the Martian surface, just like Earthly brooks. It fowed down in a catastrophic flood from a series of fractures known as the Cerberus Fossae. It inundated an area about the size of the North Sea and was initially 45 metres deep on average.
Because of the freezing weather on Mars, the water immediately turned to ice. The pack-ice floes have drifted into obstacles, and in many places have become grounded on islands when the water level dropped. Ice is unstable at the surface of Mars because of the low atmospheric pressure, and sublimes away (changes straight from ice to vapour without passing through the liquid state) into the atmosphere, but volcanic ash and dust can preserve it. Thick ice trapped within enclosed craters suggests that most of the ice is still there.
Click on the headline to see pictures.
