Huge Reservoir of Frozen Water Found on Mars

[Logan13]

I want to assure you liberal skeptics, there is a planet called Mars, Fox isn't making it up.........
Huge Reservoir of Frozen Water Found on Marshttp://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258989,00.html
03/15/07
Mars is unlikely to sport beachfront property any time soon, but the planet has enough water ice at its south pole to blanket the entire planet in more than 30 feet of water if everything thawed out.

With a radar technique, astronomers have penetrated for the first time about 2.5 miles (nearly four kilometers) beneath the south pole's frozen surface.

The data showed that nearly pure water ice lies beneath.

Discovered in the early 1970s, layered deposits of ice and dust cap the north and south poles of Mars. Until now, the deposits have been difficult to study closely with existing telescopes and satellites.

The current advance comes from a probe of the deposits using an instrument aboard the Mars Express orbiter.

"This is the first time that a ground-penetrating system has ever been used on Mars," said the new radar study's lead author, Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "All the other instruments used to study the surface of Mars in the past really have only been sensitive to what occurs at the very surface."

(NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft also carries instruments designed, among other things, to probe beneath icy polar surfaces.)

Deep probe

Plaut and his colleagues probed the deposits with radar echo sounding, typically used on Earth to study the interiors of glaciers.

The instrument, called the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding, or MARSIS, beams radio waves which penetrate the planet's surface and bounce off features having different electrical properties.

The reflected beams revealed that 90 percent or more of the frozen polar material is pure water ice, sprinkled with dust particles.

The scientists calculated that the water would form a 36-foot-deep ocean of sorts if spread over the Martian globe.

"It's the best evidence that's been obtained to date for that thickness," said Ken Herkenhoff, a planetary geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz., who studies the Martian polar regions. He was not involved in the current study.

Scientists have long known that Mars' north polar cap is a massive storehouse of water ice, and the current research team says they will use their radar technique to refine past estimates of its thickness and make-up.

Missing water

"These polar ice deposits are by far the largest reservoir of water or water ice that we know of on Mars," Plaut said.

That's a lot of water, but not enough to account for the flowing streams thought to meander along Mars' surface in the past.

"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," Plaut told SPACE.com.

So where's the rest of the water?

One idea is that a subterranean plumbing system once ferried loads of water beneath the Martian surface.

Plaut said his team also will search for underground pools with the radar technique.

[Jason865]

I hope the terrorists don't blow Mars up with weapons of mass destruction. We need to send troops in right now.

[Logan13]

I hope the terrorists don't blow Mars up with weapons of mass destruction. We need to send troops in right now.

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. – Abraham Lincoln

‘Blessed is the man who, having nothing to stay, abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact. – George Eliot

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” - Plato

Get my point.........?

[Jason865]

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. – Abraham Lincoln

‘Blessed is the man who, having nothing to stay, abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact. – George Eliot

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” - Plato

Get my point.........?

So you are saying the terrorists are not a problem??

Sorry I'm confused because all you did was cut and paste.

[Jason865]

"a vote for Kerry would be a vote for terrorism"

Dick Cheney

[Logan13]

"a vote for Kerry would be a vote for terrorism"

Dick Cheney

You probably voted for Kerry because you thought that having nice hair qualified him for the Oval Office.

[Hoggage_54]

I knew I should have bought that 20 acres of land on Mars for $20.

[Mus505]

thats great.....i guess amma be livin there in future...lol

[SVTMuscle*]

I wonder if Al Gore started the documentary on the global warming effects on Mars melting that water!

[Mus505]

ha ha ha ha i like how he says that there is a planet called mars and fox is not makin it up....thats funny

[Jason865]

You probably voted for Kerry because you thought that having nice hair qualified him for the Oval Office.

I voted for Hitler because he is tough on the evil ones.

[Kärnfysikern]

Thats great news. Just more incentive to put people on mars asap.

[Kärnfysikern]

Jason why posting all this useless junk in this thread? what does terrorist or cheney have to do with mars. If you got a beef with logan keep it in relevant threads. This isnt the lounge.