Mars Glaciers; Enough Water Ice On Mars To Cover The Whole Planet 1 Meter Deep

a reply to: stormbringer1701

sure it does. if there is enough to cover the planet in over one meter of water then that is in fact how much water is in that ice.

Sigh, read it again. It states there is enough to cover the planet in a meter of 'ice', not water. But I get how that misleads people. They jump on the bandwagon they want to hear (or are promoting)…

a reply to: intrptr

That hast changed.

There is no magnetic shield now but that was not always the case , Mars had a shield , a thicker atmosphere , water at it's surface and a warmer climate which made it suitable for life , some scientists believe life may have started there due to it's more favorable conditions then came here through panspermia.

Yes the video is a simulation but it's a simulation based on what we've learned over the decades of exploration of the planet.

a reply to: gortex

I think they say it had an atmosphere because all the proto planets did in the early stages of the Solar System development. Hardly blue skies and standing water, but more like the atmosphere of titan, snazzy, a combination of gasses and a mix of volatile gasses in liquid form.

Like Jupiter and the outer planets. They still retain their gaseous structure because the suns radiation is weakened by the distance.

The inner planets are rocky, condensed forms of matter in the suns energy, but the only one in the zone, the right size, axis, and spin, plus a molten core… is earth.

a reply to: intrptr

I think they say it had an atmosphere because all the proto planets did in the early stages of the Solar System development.

They say it had and still has an atmosphere because of the years of scientific exploration of the planet , we know more about Mars than we do our deepest oceans.
We have several orbiters above Mars studying it in detail as well as the various rover and lander missions , the simulation video is based on the data that's been gathered over the years not speculation.

a reply to: gortex

That "atmosphere" is mostly CO2, at .oo8 milibars, mostly vacuum.


(ETA as 'thin' as that simulated video.

a reply to: intrptr

It has enough of an atmosphere to do this....

More clouds on Mars


Plants like CO2.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: gortex

Mars is to small to retain an atmosphere that "could" resemble the earth in that pic. Thats why Mars looks like it does.

Goldilocks Zone

The reason that Mars has such a thin atmosphere is Mars does not have a magnetic field like Earth does and thus has no magnetosphere. Because Mars does not have a magnetosphere, the solar wind and cosmic radiation can attack the atmosphere directly and "burn" it off.

Or some such…

It doesn't have one now. How do we know it didn't long ago? Also if we were to top up Mar's atmosphere right now: it would take 300,000 years for it to return to it's present state and that is assuming there were no regenerative processes or closed loops like deep hydrological cycles like earth has, in addition to oceanic and atmospheric processes.

Core samples are needed and human exploration as well.This report bodes well for the eventual trip to Mars,it's too bad this stuff never makes it to the evening news.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: gortex

That "atmosphere" is mostly CO2, at .oo8 milibars, mostly vacuum.


(ETA

as 'thin' as that simulated video.

Your sarcasm is more than misplaced, you should read both the link from the OP and the link I sent to you from the Niels Bohr Institute. You don't even seem to care, you are using old data. MEH!

a reply to: stormbringer1701

It doesn't have one now. How do we know it didn't long ago?

Probably did, due to impactors…

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: gortex

Mars is to small to retain an atmosphere that "could" resemble the earth in that pic. Thats why Mars looks like it does.

Goldilocks Zone

The reason that Mars has such a thin atmosphere is Mars does not have a magnetic field like Earth does and thus has no magnetosphere. Because Mars does not have a magnetosphere, the solar wind and cosmic radiation can attack the atmosphere directly and "burn" it off.

Or some such…

It's thought that Mars's size has little to do with the loss of its atmosphere and how it lost it is up for debate. As it is currently Venus, Earth and Mars are all losing their atmospheres to the solar wind at roughly the same rate:

More on the debate here...


Also we know that Mars once looked similar to that picture because there a mountain of evidence for ancient seas, rivers, bays, lakes, etc in the form of geology.

a reply to: gortex

It has enough of an atmosphere to do this….

Compared to total vacuum Mars has 'enough' atmosphere to hang CO2 crystals on high and form 'dust devils'. What does that prove, that it kind of looks like earth atmosphere?

a reply to: JadeStar

Also we know that Mars once looked similar to that picture because there a mountain of evidence for ancient seas, rivers, bays, lakes, etc in the form of geology.

But just as readily could have been caused by rivers of liquid methane, ammonia and CO2 flowing out from the heat of a huge impacting meteorite. Same evidence of "river channels" exists on the moon.

Sure, dry river beds and sediment layers, but rivers of what?

ETA: What do they call the nodules that litter Mars surface? Should be a clue to evaporation occurring on a grand scale.

a reply to: JadeStar

Earth and Mars are all losing their atmospheres to the solar wind at roughly the same rate:

More on the debate here…

Thats not what the article concludes…

Satellites in orbit around Earth have detected high-speed ions coming out over the poles, but scientists are not certain how many of them actually escape into space, rather than recycle back into the atmosphere through the Earth's magnetosphere.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: intrptr

I think they say it had an atmosphere because all the proto planets did in the early stages of the Solar System development.

They say it had and still has an atmosphere because of the years of scientific exploration of the planet , we know more about Mars than we do our deepest oceans.
We have several orbiters above Mars studying it in detail as well as the various rover and lander missions , the simulation video is based on the data that's been gathered over the years not speculation.

^^^ This.

Mars has been the subject of intense study since well before the space program but since we began sending probes there 55 years ago we've gathered a ton of information on this world.

There is so much human made hardware in orbit around Mars or on the surface of Mars that if I were an alien coming from another solar system, I'd stop by Mars thinking that it was inhabited by a technological species because there are a bunch of satellites orbiting it.



Not shown are MAVEN (NASA) and Mars Orbiter Mission (India):




With the arrival of NASA's MAVEN mission and India's Mars Orbiter Mission there are currently 7 active missions in addition to the many old, defunct orbiters still circling the red planet:

a reply to: intrptr

What does that prove, that it kind of looks like earth atmosphere?

It proves the Mars of today has an atmosphere capable of creating dust devils and sustaining clouds , the science shows the Mars of yesteryear was much more Earth-like than it is today.

The clouds aren't CO2 crystals they are water crystals.
Water ice occurs on Mars' surface in the residual polar caps and as clouds.

crism.jhuapl.edu...

a reply to: gortex

Mars is lo gravity, near vacuum, blasted by suns radiation, sterile, cold and barren.


It hardly resembles earth.

a reply to: intrptr

Mars is lo gravity, near vacuum, blasted by suns radiation, sterile, cold and barren.

Even so as we've seen it has dust devils and water clouds.
I feel we are going round in circles here , today Mars is a different planet to the planet it was before whatever happened to it happened .... it wasn't always as we see it today , in the dark distant past it did resemble the Earth.

Either you're playing a game here or there is some reason you don't want to accept that simple fact but the information is freely available to show that to be the case , I'm done banging my head against your brick wall.

a reply to: gortex

And all Im saying is the computer simulation of earth type conditions with blue skies, white puffy clouds is… a simulation.

Thats me banging my head against your "earth type conditions" brick wall. To me that always smacks of 'need to promote familiarity to justify more budget to send more probes there'.

Its a cold barren rock. The only interests interested are the wealthy ones that want to mine it for its mineral wealth. Something we hear little about in all the data, by the way.

Every other lauded reason like colonization, terra forming, whatever is promotional fantastical cover for pure and simple greed. Greed for money to 'explore' and greed for money from exploitation.

This is a joke Gortex, but I get the sell…

One pic is worth a billion dollars to some greedy philanthropist.