4 ms·
Or mud, as this stuff otherwise known.
by techterrier 10y ago
Or mud, as this stuff otherwise known.
- peeters 10y agoGiven the temperature and pressure of Mars' atmosphere, "permafrost" might be a better comparison.
- stcredzero 10y agoThere is a sentence that seems to imply that the frozen status implies there is no life. I'm not so sure we can be sure of that. There are microbes on Earth that basically live in virtually frozen environments. (All you need are moments when the water is liquid.)
- Practicality 10y agoYou could even just have life that moves more slowly because of the lower available energies. If we ever find some life that does not have an Earth origin perhaps we can finally get some more data points about what environments are really required for life.
- Animats 10y agoAll you need are moments when the water is liquid. But you don't get those at such low atmospheric pressure. Mars atmospheric pressure is around 600pa. Below 611pa, the boiling point of water drops to the freezing point; you can have ice or steam, but not liquid water.
- stcredzero 10y agoBut you don't get those at such low atmospheric pressure. Mars atmospheric pressure is around 600pa. A mental exercise: Any place on Mars with higher than 600pa pressure?
- qbrass 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellas_Planitia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellas_Planitia
- stcredzero 10y agoHow about underground? How about the bottom of a glacier? No need to be "surfacist." ;)
- qbrass 10y agoAn unsealed hole underground would have to be dug to the same depths as that crater. If you're pressurizing it, you'll probably target 1 bar to live in it, instead of 600 KPa. A glacier that has the pressure to melt ice, would have more than enough pressure to keep it from sublimating. A rough estimate says that a foot or so of ice could provide over 600KPa of pressure, but that doesn't account for any means of keeping the water liquid or the ice solid. However, I wouldn't expect to actually find that on Mars. You might be able to keep water that way for a while until it froze again.
- hermitdev 10y agoThey do have recent satellite images that appear to show signs of water running down ravines at certain times of the Mara year. Don't have a citation handy, though.
- smcnally 10y agoThat explanation is sublime.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Practicality 10y agoYou're going to be hard pressed to out pedantic NASA scientists. They probably spent quite some time deliberating over the term "Ice Deposit" as the most accurate one.
- tempymctempface 10y agoyou're this smug about an article describing a huge water deposit on mars? I'd hate to get your opinion on something more mundane
- InclinedPlane 10y agoIt is not mud. Firstly it is not liquid, it's frozen. Secondly, it's not permafrost where it's mixed with a considerable amount of dirt, it's ice, a sub-surface glacier, one of many on Mars, merely the largest one we've discovered so far.