SCI/TECH: Frozen Sea In Mars

European scientists have interpreted images taken by the Mars Express spacecraft and found a frozen sea just below the surface of Mars. The frozen water is supposed to be covered with volcanic ash and dust. Other scientists have already said that the interpretation is reasonable.



I wonder how much water we will find from there during the years to come. The article said that it might be possible to find micro-organisms still living there. I hope they send at least one lander there to inspect.

[edit on 21-2-2005 by Oblomov]

(I voted no because there is no supplemental information)

The interpretation is based on images taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera

HRSC
The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) is one of the principal orbiter payload instruments for the Russian Mars 96 Mission to be launched in November this year .[...] In spring 1995, the flight hard-ware was tested at the prime manufacturer's facility near Lake Constance (Germany) in order to verify the geometric and radiometric performance of the camera as well as the software developed for HRSC ground data processing
Its intersting to note how long in advance these things were planned out. 10 years is a long time to wait.

"It's been predicted for a long time that you should find water close to the surface of Mars near the equator," Jan-Peter Muller,

seems this guy is well qualified to make such statements

www.gis.uclbusiness.ucl.com...
Professor Muller's research includes:
Gobal environmental mapping and monitoring UK DEM creation using SAR interferometry Sensor modelling: high resolution optical sensors, SAR, LIDAR Feature Extraction: 3D mapping and modelling of urban areas including automated feature extraction Terrain Modelling at all scales using stereo data, SAR, interferometry, shape-form-shading and laser altimetry on Earth and other planets

Here is his university webpage.

This site has some intersting information.

Evidence for running water, including river channels such as those shown here can be seen on the surface of Mars, and there are frozen, icy polar caps, but there is no running water present today. The atmosphere of Mars seems to contain water. There are clouds and fog. These features suggest that there was water present near the surface at some time in the Martian past, and that water still cycles between reservoirs in the ground and atmosphere today.

[edit on 21-2-2005 by Nygdan]

Forget sending landers! Send a freakin napalm bomb and melt that ice and see what we can find!

scientest drilled ice cores from anirtica once and found bactirea that had been frozen for over 50,000 years and thued it out and the bactiera came back to life .
Id say if there ever was life on mars and is still life there this meathed may be a good way of finding it.

One thing has puzzled me. Some of the features on Mars that are indicative of water are in "soft" ground (rover tyre marks). So surely after "millions" of years that soft ground would have eroded and not stayed looking as if the water was there very recently ?

On melting the frozen ground water, I have heard one theory where black dust is injected into the planet, covers the ground, and, being black, absorbs more heat and heats up, thus increasing temp, and melting ice.

maclr
). So surely after "millions" of years that soft ground would have eroded and not stayed looking as if the water was there very recently

Erosion on earth tho is largely influenced and driven by free flowing and atmospheric water. Even wind on mars is supposed to be 'weak' because the atmosphere is thinner. But there should be erosion, maybe not enoughto wipe it out, but thats a good observation.

Now this news is the neatest I've read in a while!

This may speed up the need for human exploration ten-fold!

I'm willing to bet that several miles deep, there may be rivers of flowing water.

We may still yet find the remnants of a lost civilization that pre-dates human history!

Cool! Really fascinating!

The story continues..

An Italian scientist working on the Mars Express probe says gases detected in the planet's atmosphere may indicate life exists on the Red Planet today

news.bbc.co.uk...

I herd the frozen sea on Mars is suppose to be the size of Lake Michigan, if thats so why is it considered a sea?

Next why now after all this years of sending probes finally we find water,maybe Nasa knew all along about it and didn't want to say a word of it!!!

Well, the frozen area is supposed to be 800 kilometers long and 900 kilometers wide and its depth is 45 meters. So I would call it a sea

You can check the details from the ESA:s site:
www.esa.int...

Btw, ESA will have Mars Express media briefing today at 14:00 CET.
more here: www.esa.int...