Wednesday, December 06, 2006

More Evidence Of Martian Water Arises

SpaceToys.com Authentic NASA Toys and Replicas
(Hat Tip: Mars News)

NASA has released news of water existing on the red planet, perhaps in liquid form underground. If so, future colonists may be able to tap into the "water line," although doing so may cause a flash flood.

(NASA) MALIN: We think that the water is coming from deep in the ground. It's warmed as it gets closer to the center of Mars. The outer parts of Mars are really, really quite cold, but the inner part is probably still warm, just as the Earth's interior is warm. As the water came up, it reached the surface and initially froze at the surface. But as more and more water came up, it would build pressure behind the frozen water in front of it and eventually it would break out of behind that barrier and flow down the surface. So we think there's an ice dam that is holding back water for some period of time, and then that dam breaks, and water comes out, and as it comes out, and as the dam breaks, it consists of rock debris from the rock around that water, it includes ice fragments from the dam and it includes liquid water.


How thick that "ice dam" is would be something future Martians would have to find out. Of course any water found on Mars would have to be filtered out for contamination (as Martian soil can be toxic and that may include some of the sub layers as well).




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