Water ice in crater at Martian north pole

MrBishop

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
28 July 2005
These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show a patch of water ice sitting on the floor of an unnamed crater near the Martian north pole.


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http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMGKA808BE_1.html#subhead1
The HRSC obtained these images during orbit 1343 with a ground resolution of approximately 15 metres per pixel. The unnamed impact crater is located on Vastitas Borealis, a broad plain that covers much of Mars's far northern latitudes, at approximately 70.5° North and 103° East.



The crater is 35 kilometres wide and has a maximum depth of approximately 2 kilometres beneath the crater rim. The circular patch of bright material located at the centre of the crater is residual water ice.


http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMGKA808BE_1.html#subhead2
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This white patch is present all year round, as the temperature and pressure are not high enough to allow sublimation of water ice.

It cannot be frozen carbon dioxide since carbon dioxide ice had already disappeared from the north polar cap at the time the image was taken (late summer in the Martian northern hemisphere).


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http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMGKA808BE_1.html#subhead3
There is a height difference of 200 metres between the crater floor and the surface of this bright material, which cannot be attributed solely to water ice.

It is probably mostly due to a large dune field lying beneath this ice layer. Indeed, some of these dunes are exposed at the easternmost edge of the ice.

Faint traces of water ice are also visible along the rim of the crater and on the crater walls. The absence of ice along the north-west rim and walls may occur because this area receives more sunlight due to the Sun’s orientation, as highlighted in the perspective view.




The colour images were processed using the HRSC nadir (vertical view) and three colour channels. The perspective views were calculated from the digital terrain model derived from the stereo channels.


The 3D anaglyph images were created from the nadir channel and one of the stereo channels. Stereoscopic glasses are needed to view the 3D images Image resolution has been decreased for use on the internet.
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Source
 
ARTIST: Monty Python
TITLE: The Galaxy Song
Lyrics and Chords


[Meaning of Life, the]

[ Adim7 = ]

{Spoken, loosely}
Whenever life get you down, Mrs. Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enu-hu-hu-huuuuff

/ Adim7 A / A7 A / Adim7 A F# / B E7 /

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour
That's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way

/ A Amaj7 A6 A / A A6 E7 - / - Bm7 E Bm7 / E7 Bm7 A - /
/ 1st / F#7 - Bm - / D Adim7 A F#7 / Bm E7 A - /

Our galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars
It's 100,000 light-years side-to-side
It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light-years thick
But out by us it's just 3000 light-years wide
We're 30,000 light-years from galactic central point
We go round every 200 million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
Because there's bugger all down here on Earth
Click to expand...


Good ta see ya back, Mike.
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
...as opposed to, lemonade ice?

*peepwall*
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Or frozen Carbon dioxide - Dry ice


In either case... the fact that there is ice on Mars' surface, means that there may very well be water beneath the surface as well....which can be used to make oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to burn.

Mind you...if Vanilla Ice is on Mars...I damn well ain't going!
 
ekahs retsam said:
The sure is interesting Bish.

Now if they can only find intelligent life in the universe :alienhuh:
Click to expand...
[size=+1]N = R* fp ne f l fi fc L[/size]
Where:
  • R* is rate of formation of suitable stars (stars like the Sun) in the Milky Way galaxy
  • fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
  • ne is the number of planets capable of sustaining life around each of those stars having planets
  • fl is the fraction of planets capable of sustaining life that actually evolve life
  • fi is the fraction of those planets where live has evolved that evolve intelligent life
  • fc is the fraction of planets with intelligent life that develop the capability to communicate
  • L is the fraction of the planet's life during which the intelligent life can communicate
Still doesn't prove anything...but I still think that it can be used to find signs of intelligence in Washington :)
 
MrBishop said:
In either case... the fact that there is ice on Mars' surface, means that there may very well be water beneath the surface as well....which can be used to make oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to burn.
Click to expand...

Always assuming, of course, that any life from another planet requires oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to burn.

I always found it amusing that in most movies and other depictions, the aliens spoke perfect English. Convenient, huh?
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
Always assuming, of course, that any life from another planet requires oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to burn.

I always found it amusing that in most movies and other depictions, the aliens spoke perfect English. Convenient, huh?
Click to expand...
Never mind life from other planets...I was talking about us moving there in our expansion across our solar system and beyond.
*cue Star Trek music here*

I've read a few interesting novels which try to break that egocentric assumption. It mostly turns out really bad for us or them.
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
Oh. Right. That.

Let's finish fucking up our own planet before we start another, shall we?
Click to expand...
I don't like moving right after a fire...all those clothes to clean and get that funky smell out of.

I figure that either we'll fuck up the earth so fast that we won't be able to get off in time, or we'll leave early stranding all the third-world nations behind, come back in a century and find that going back to the dark ages did the world some good. :shrug:
 
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